I 


1 


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Pi* 


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WELLINGTONS  ARMY 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/wellingtonsarmy101oman 


/  i  y.  j. 


Arthur  Wellesley,  Duke  of  Wellington. 

From  a  portrait  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence. 


WELLINGTON’S 

ARMY 

1809-1814 


BY 

C.  W.  C.  OMAN 

M.A.  OXON.,  HON.  LL.D.  EDIN. 

CHICHELE  PKOFESSOII  OF  MODERN  HISTORY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


SECOND  IMPRESSION 

e 


NEW  YORK 

LONGMANS,  GREEN,  AND  CO. 
London  :  EDWARD  ARNOLD 
1913 


PREFACE 


Much  has  been  written  concerning  Wellington  and  his 
famous  Peninsular  Army  in  the  way  of  formal  history  : 
this  volume,  however,  will  I  think  contain  somewhat  that 
is  new  to  most  students  concerning  its  organization,  its 
day  by  day  life,  and  its  psychology.  To  understand  the 
exploits  of  Wellington’s  men,  it  does  not  suffice  to  read  a 
mere  chronicle  of  their  marches  and  battles.  I  have 
endeavoured  to  collect  in  these  pages  notices  of  those 
aspects  of  their  life  with  which  no  strategical  or  tactical 
work  can  deal,  though  tactics  and  even  strategy  will  not 
be  found  unnoticed. 

My  special  thanks  are  due  to  my  friend  Mr.  C.  T. 
Atkinson,  Fellow  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford,  for  allowing 
me  to  use  the  admirable  list  of  the  brigade  and  divisional 
organization  of  the  Peninsular  Army  which  forms  Appendix 
II.  It  is  largely  expanded  from  the  article  on  the  same 
topic  which  he  printed  eight  years  ago  in  the  Historical 
Review ,  and  enables  the  reader  to  find  out  the  precise 
composition  of  every  one  of  Wellington’s  units  at  any 
moment  between  April,  1808  and  April,  1814.  I  have 
also  to  express  my  gratitude  to  the  Hon.  John  Fortescue, 
the  author  of  the  great  History  of  the  British  Army,  for 
answering  a  good  many  queries  which  I  should  have  found 
hard  to  solve  without  his  aid.  The  index  is  by  the  same 
loving  hand  which  has  worked  on  so  many  of  my  earlier 
volumes. 

C.  OMAN. 

Oxford, 

September,  1912. 


CONTENTS 


hi. 


IV. 

V. 

VI. 


Introductory — The  Old  Peninsular  Army 

Sources  op  Information — The  Literature  op  the 
Peninsular  War . 

The  Duke  op  Wellington — The  Man  and  the 
Strategist . 

Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics— Line  versus  Column 

Wellington’s  Tactics — The  Cavalry  and  Artillery. 

Wellington’s  Lieutenants — Hill,  Beresford,  Graham 


PAGE 

1 

9^ 

39 

61 

94 

115 


VII.  Wellington’s  Lieutenants — Picton,  Craufurd,  and 

Others . 129 

VIII.  The  Organization  of  the  Army  :  Headquarters  .  153 

IX.  The  Organization  of  the  Army  :  Brigades  and 

Divisions . 163 

X.  The  Organization  of  the  Army  :  The  Regiments  .  178 

XI.  Internal  Organization  of  the  Regiment  :  The  Officers  195 

XII.  Internal  Organization  of  the  Regiment  :  The  Rank 

and  Pile . 208 

XIII.  The  Auxiliaries:  The  Germans  and  the  Portuguese  220 

XIV.  Discipline  and  Court-Martials  ....  237 

XV.  The  Army  on  the  March . 255 

XVI.  Impedimenta  :  The  Baggage  :  Ladies  at  the  Front  .  268 


Contents 


viii 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XVII.  A  Note  on  Sieges  .......  279 

XVIII.  Uniforms  and  Weapons  ......  292 

XIX.  The  Commissariat  .......  307 

XX.  A  Note  on  the  Spiritual  Life  ....  320 

Appendix  I.  Establishment  and  Stations  of  the  British 

Army  in  1809  ......  333 

,,  II.  The  Divisions  and  Brigades  of  the  Peninsular 
Army,  1809 — 1814,  by  C.  T.  Atkinson,  M.A., 
Fellow  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford  .  .  343 

,,  III.  Bibliography  of  English  Diaries,  Journals 

and  Memoirs  of  the  Peninsular  War  .  375 

Index . 385 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Plate  I. — Arthur  Wellesley,  Duke  op  Wellington  Frontispiece 

From  a  portrait  by  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence 

FACING  PAGE 

„  II. — Lord  Hill,  G.C.B. . 118 

,,  III.— General  Thomas  Graham,  Baron  Lynedoch,  G.C.B., 

G.C.M.G . 126 

From  the  picture  by  Sir  George  Hay  ter 

„  IV. — General  Sir  Thomas  Picton,  K.G.B.  .  .  .  138 

„  V.— Officer  of  Rifles,  1809  188 

Private,  Infantry  of  the  Line,  1809  .  .  .  188 


„  VI.  Officer  of  Light  Dragoons,  Uniform  of  1809  .  194 
Officer  of  Light  Dragoons,  Uniform  of  1813  .  194 
„  VII.— Private  of  Heavy  Dragoons,  1809  .  .  .  284 

Officer  of  Field  Artillery,  1809  .  .  .  284 


VIII. — Sergeant  and  Private  of  Infantry  in  Winter 

Marching  Order,  1813 . 296 


WELLINGTON’S  ARMY 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTORY — THE  OLD  PENINSULAR  ARMY 

While  working  for  the  last  nine  years  at  the  History  of 
the  Peninsular  War,  I  have  (as  was  inevitable)  been  com¬ 
pelled  to  accumulate  many  notes,  and  much  miscellaneous 
information  which  does  not  bear  upon  the  actual  chronicle 
of  events  in  the  various  campaigns  that  lie  between  1808 
and  1814,  but  yet  possesses  high  interest  in  itself,  and 
throws  many  a  side-light  on  the  general  course  of  the  war. 
Roughly  speaking,  these  notes  relate  either  to  the  personal 
characteristics  of  that  famous  old  army  of  Wellington, 
which,  as  he  himself  said,  “  could  go  anywhere  and  do  any¬ 
thing,”  or  to  its  inner  mechanism — the  details  of  its  manage¬ 
ment.  I  purpose  to  speak  in  these  pages  of  the  leaders 
and  the  led  ;  of  the  daily  life,  manners,  and  customs  of 
the  Peninsular  Army,  as  much  as  of  its  composition  and  its 
organization.  I  shall  be  dealing  with  the  rank  and  file 
no  less  than  with  the  officers,  and  must  even  find  space  for  a 
few  pages  on  that  curious  and  polyglot  horde  of  camp 
followers  which  trailed  at  the  heels  of  the  army,  and  fre¬ 
quently  raised  problems  which  worried  not  only  colonels 
and  adjutants,  but  even  the  Great  Duke  himself. 

There  is  an  immense  amount  of  interesting  material 
to  be  collected,  concerning  the  inner  life  of  the  Peninsular 
Army,  from  public  documents,  such  as  despatches,  general 
orders,  and  regimental  reports,  and  records  of  courts  martial. 
But  I  shall  be  utilizing  to  a  much  greater  extent  non-official 

£ 


2 


The  Old  Peninsular  Army 


information,  collected  from  the  countless  diaries,  memoirs, 
and  series  of  contemporary  letters,  which  have  come 
down  to  us  from  the  men  who  took  part  in  the  great  war. 
Nor  are  the  controversial  pamphlets  to  be  neglected,  which 
kept  appearing  for  many  a  year,  when  one  survivor  of  the 
old  army  found,  in  the  writings  of  another,  statements 
which  he  considered  injurious  to  himself,  his  friends,  his 
regiment,  or  his  division.  The  best  known  and  most 
copious  of  these  discussions  is  that  which  centres  round  the 
publication  of  Napier’s  Peninsular  War  ;  the  successive 
appearance  of  its  volumes  led  to  the  printing  of  many 
protests,  in  which  some  of  the  most  prominent  officers  of 
Wellington’s  army  took  part — not  only  Lord  Beresford, 
who  was  Napier’s  especial  butt  and  bete  noir,  and  replied 
to  the  historian  in  terms  sometimes  not  too  dignified — but 
Cole,  Hardinge,  D’Urban,  and  many  more.  This  set  of 
“  strictures  ”,  as  they  were  called,  mainly  relate  to  the 
Albuera  campaign.  But  there  are  smaller,  but  not  less 
interesting,  series  of  controversial  pamphlets  relating  to 
the  Convention  of  Cintra,  to  Moore’s  retreat,  to  the  cam¬ 
paign  of  1810  (Bussaco),  the  storm  of  Badajoz,  and  other 
topics. 

The  memoirs  and  autobiographies,  of  course,  possess 
the  greatest  share  of  interest.  And  it  may  be  noted  as  a 
remarkable  fact  that  those  coming  from  the  rank  and  file 
are  not  very  much  less  numerous  than  those  which  come 
from  the  commissioned  ranks.  If  there  are  scores  of 
diaries  and  reminiscences  of  colonels,  captains,  and  subal¬ 
terns,  there  are  at  least  dozens  of  little  books  by  sergeants, 
corporals,  and  privates.  Many  of  these  are  very  quaint 
productions  indeed,  printed  at  local  presses — at  Perth, 
Coventry,  Cirencester,  Louth,  Ashford — even  at  Corfu. 
Very  frequently  some  knot  of  military  or  civilian  friends 
induced  a  much-travelled  veteran  to  commit  to  paper  the 
tales  which  had  been  the  delight  of  the  canteen,  or  of  the 
fireside  of  some  village  inn.  They  are  generally  very 
good  reading,  but  often  give  rather  the  spirit  of  the  time 


Memoirs  of  the  Rank  and  File 


3 


and  the  regiment  than  an  accurate  record  of  its  long-past 
exploits.  One  or  two  of  these  veterans’  artless  tales  show 
all  the  characteristics  of  the  memoirs  of  the  prince  of  their 
tribe — the  delightful  but  autolatrous  Marbot.  I  have 
thought  it  worth  while  to  give  in  an  appendix  the  names  and 
titles  of  the  best  of  them.  One  or  two,  above  all  the  little 
book  of  “  Rifleman  Harris  ”  of  the  95th,  well  deserve  to  be 
republished,  but  still  await  that  honour.  Perhaps  regi¬ 
mental  patriotism  may  some  day  provide  us  with  a  series 
of  reprints  of  the  best  Soldiers’  Tales.* 

It  is  a  very  notable  fact,  which  requires  (but  has  never 
hitherto  received)  an  explanation,  that  it  is  precisely  with 
the  coming  in  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  British 
soldiers  and  officers  alike  began  to  write  diaries  and  re¬ 
miniscences  on  a  large  scale,  and  in  great  numbers.  I  do 
not,  of  course,  mean  to  say  that  there  were  none  such  pro¬ 
duced  in  the  eighteenth  century.  Besides  serious  military 
histories  like  those  of  Kane,  Stedman,  or  Tarleton,  there 
do  exist  a  certain  number  of  narratives  of  personal  adventure 
written  by  officers,  such  as  Major  Rogers  the  Scout,  or 
the  garrulous  and  often  amusing  diarist  (unfortunately 
anonymous)  who  made  the  campaign  of  Culloden  with  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland — not  to  speak  of  the  semi-apochryphal 
Captain  Carleton.  But  they  are  few,  and  the  writings  from 
the  ranks  are  fewer  still,  though  there  are  certain  soldiers’ 
letters  which  go  back  as  far  as  Marlborough’s  time,  and 
one  or  two  small  books  like  Bristow’s  and  Scurry’s  Indian 
reminiscences,  and  Sergeant  Lamb’s  Journal  in  the  American 
War  of  Independence,  which  are  worth  mentioning.  But 
it  is  quite  certain  that  there  was  more  writing  going  on  in 
the  army  during  the  ten  years  1805-1815  than  in  the  whole 
eighteenth  century. 

What  was  the  explanation  of  the  phenomenon  ?  There 
are,  I  think,  two  main  causes  to  be  borne  in  mind  :  the 

*  John  Shipp’s  is  the  only  book  from  the  ranks  which  has  been 
reprinted  within  the  last  ten  years,  I  believe.  Mr.  Fitchett  repro¬ 
duced  a  few  chapters  of  Anton  and  others  in  his  rather  disappointing 
Wellington's  Men. 


4 


The  Old  Peninsular  Army 


first  was  the  glorious  and  inspiring  character  of  Wellington’s 
campaigns,  which  made  both  officers  and  men  justifiably 
proud  of  themselves,  and  more  anxious  than  any  previous 
generation  had  been  to  put  on  paper  the  tale  of  their  own 
exploits.  It  must  have  been  a  man  of  particularly  cheerful 
disposition  who  cared  to  compile  the  personal  narrative  of 
his  adventures  during  the  Old  American  War,  which  was 
largely  a  record  of  disaster,  or  even  in  the  ups  and  downs 
of  the  Seven  Years’  War,  when  for  every  Minden  or  Quebec 
there  had  been  an  evil  memory  like  Ticonderoga  or  Kloster- 
Kampen.  It  is  to  this  instinctive  dislike  to  open  up  old 
memories  of  misfortune  that  we  may  attribute  the  fact  that 
the  first  British  campaigns  of  the  French  Revolutionary 
War,  the  unhappy  marches  and  battles  of  the  Duke  of 
York’s  army  in  1793,  1794,  1795  are  recorded  in  singularly 
few  books  of  reminiscences — there  are  only  (to  my  know¬ 
ledge)  the  doggerel  verse  of  the  “  Officer  of  the  Guards,” 
with  its  valuable  foot-notes,  and  the  simple  memoirs  of 
Sergeant  Stevenson  of  the  Scots  Fusilier  Guards,  and 
Corporal  Brown  of  the  Coldstream.  This  is  an  extra¬ 
ordinarily  small  output  for  a  long  series  of  campaigns,  in 
which  some  30,000  British  troops  were  in  the  field,  and 
where  gallant  exploits  like  those  of  Famars  and  Villers- 
en-Cauchies  took  place.  But  the  general  tale  was  not  one 
on  which  any  participant  could  look  back  with  pleasure. 
Hence,  no  doubt,  the  want  of  books  of  reminiscences. 

But  I  fancy  that  there  is  another  and  a  quite  distinct 
cause  for  the  extraordinary  outburst  of  interesting  military 
literature  with  which  the  nineteenth  century  begins,  and  we 
may  note  that  this  outburst  certainly  commences  a  little 
before  the  Peninsular  War.  There  exist  several  very  good 
personal  narratives  both  of  the  Conquest  of  Egypt  in  1801, 
of  the  Indian  Wars  during  the  Viceroyalty  of  Lord  Wel¬ 
lesley,  and  of  the  short  campaign  of  Maida.  And  this  cause 
I  take  to  be  the  fact  that  the  generation  which  grew  up 
under  the  stress  of  the  long  Revolutionary  War  with  France 
was  far  more  serious  and  intelligent  than  that  which  saw 


The  Sword  and  the  Pen 


5 


it  begin,  and  realized  the  supreme  importance  of  the  ends 
for  which  Great  Britain  was  contending,  and  the  danger 
which  threatened  her  national  existence.  The  empire  had 
been  in  danger  before,  both  in  the  Seven  Years’  War,  and 
in  the  War  of  American  Independence,  but  the  enemy  had 
never  been  so  terrifying  and  abhorrent  as  the  Jacobins 
of  the  Red  Republic.  The  France  of  Robespierre  was 
loathed  and  feared  as  the  France  of  Louis  XV.  or  Louis  XVI. 
had  never  been.  To  the  greater  part  of  the  British  nation 
the  war  against  the  Revolution  soon  became  a  kind  of 
Crusade  against  the  “  triple-headed  monster  of  Repub¬ 
licanism,  Atheism,  and  Sedition.”  The  feeling  that  Great 
Britain  had  to  fight  not  so  much  for  empire  as  for  national 
existence,  and  for  all  that  made  life  worth  having — religion, 
morality,  constitution,  laws,  liberty — made  men  desper¬ 
ately  keen  for  the  fight,  as  their  ancestors  had  never 
been. 

Among  the  many  aspects  which  their  keenness  took,  one 
was  most  certainly  the  desire  to  record  their  own  personal 
part  in  the  great  strife.  It  is  in  some  such  way  only  that  I 
can  explain  the  fact  that  the  actually  contemporary  diaries 
and  journals  become  so  good  as  the  war  wears  on,  compared 
to  anything  that  had  gone  before.  Memoirs  and  remini¬ 
scences  written  later  do  not  count  in  the  argument,  because 
they  were  compiled  and  printed  long  after  the  French  war 
was  over,  and  its  greatness  was  understood.  But  the  abun¬ 
dance  of  good  material  written  down  (and  often  sent  to  the 
press)  during  the  continuance  of  the  war  is  astounding. 
In  some  cases  we  can  be  sure  that  we  owe  the  record  to  the 
reason  that  I  have  just  suggested.  For  example,  we  certainly 
owe  to  it  the  long  and  interesting  military  diaries  of  Lord 
Lynedoch  (the  Sir  Thomas  Graham  of  Barrosa),  who  most 
decidedly  went  into  the  Revolutionary  War  as  a  Crusader 
and  nothing  less.  As  I  shall  explain  when  dealing  with  his 
remarkable  career,  he  started  military  life  at  forty-four, 
mortgaging  his  estates  to  raise  a  battalion,  and  suddenly 
from  a  Whig  M.P.  of  the  normal  type  developed  into  a 


G 


The  Old  Peninsular  Army 


persistent  and  conscientious  fighter  against  France  and 
French  ideas — whether  they  were  expressed  (as  when  first 
lie  drew  the  sword)  in  the  frenzied  antics  of  the  Jacobins, 
or  (as  during  his  latter  years)  in  the  grinding  despotism 
of  Bonaparte.  His  diary  from  first  to  last  is  the  record  of 
one  who  feels  that  he  is  discharging  the  elementary  duty 
of  a  good  citizen,  by  doing  his  best  to  beat  the  French 
wherever  they  may  be  found. 

I  take  it  that  the  same  idea  was  at  the  bottom  of  the 
heart  of  many  a  man  of  lesser  note,  who  kept  his  pen  busy 
during  those  twenty  eventful  years.  Some  frankly  say  that 
they  went  into  the  service,  contrary  to  the  original  scheme 
of  their  life,  because  they  saw  the  danger  to  the  state, 
and  were  ready  to  take  their  part  in  meeting  it.  “  The 
threat  of  invasion  fired  every  loyal  pair  of  shoulders  for  a 
red  coat.”  * 

Of  the  men  whose  memoirs  and  letters  I  have  read, 
some  would  have  been  lawyers  (like  Sir  ITussey  Vivian), 
others  politicians,  others  doctors,  others  civil  servants, 
others  merchants,  if  the  Great  War  had  not  broken  out. 
I  should  imagine  that  the  proportion  of  officers  who  had 
taken  their  commission  for  other  reasons  than  that  they 
had  an  old  family  connection  with  the  army,  or  loved 
adventure,  was  infinitely  higher  during  this  period  than  it 
had  ever  been  before.  A  very  appreciable  number  of  them 
were  men  with  a  strong  religious  turn — a  thing  I  imagine 
to  have  been  most  unusual  in  the  army  of  the  eighteenth 
century  (though  we  must  not  forget  Colonel  Gardiner). 
One  young  diarist  heads  the  journal  of  his  first  campaign 
with  a  long  prayer,  f  Another  starts  for  the  front  with  a 
final  letter  to  his  relatives  to  the  effect  that  “  while  striving 
to  discharge  his  military  duties  he  will  never  forget  his 
religious  ones  :  he  who  observes  the  former  and  disregards 
the  latter  is  no  better  than  a  civilized  brute.”  J 

*  Kincaid,  Random  Shots  from  a  Rifleman,  p.  8. 

f  This  was  Woodberry  of  the  18th  Hussars. 

j  Sir  William  Qotnm's  Life,  p.  31. 


The  Men  of  Religion 


7 


There  were  Peninsular  officers  who  led  prayer-meetings 
and  founded  religious  societies — not  entirely  to  the  delight 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,*  whose  own  very  dry  and 
official  view  of  religion  was  as  intolerant  of  “  enthusiasm  ” 
as  that  of  any  Whig  bishop  of  Mid-Georgian  times.  Some 
of  the  most  interesting  diaries  of  the  war  are  those  of  men 
who  like  Gleig,  Dallas,  and  Boothby,  took  Holy  Orders 
when  the  strife  came  to  an  end.  One  or  two  of  the  authors 
from  the  ranks  show  the  same  tendencies.  Quartermaster 
Surtees  was  undergoing  the  agonies  of  a  very  painful  con¬ 
version,  during  the  campaign  of  1812,  and  found  that  the 
memories  of  his  spiritual  experiences  had  blunted  and 
dulled  his  recollection  of  his  regimental  fortunes  during 
that  time.f  A  very  curious  book  by  an  Irish  sergeant  of 
the  43rd  devotes  many  more  pages  to  religious  reflections 
than  to  marches  and  bivouacs.  J  Another  writer  of  the  same 
type  describes  himself  on  his  title-page  as  “  Twenty-one 
years  in  the  British  Foot  Guards,  sixteen  years  a  non¬ 
commissioned  officer,  forty  years  a  Wesleyan  class  leader, 
once  wounded,  and  two  years  a  Prisoner.”  § 

On  the  whole  I  am  inclined  to  attribute  the  great  im¬ 
provement  alike  in  the  quantity  and  the  quality  of  the  in¬ 
formation  which  we  possess  as  to  the  inner  life  of  the  army, 
during  the  second  half  of  the  great  struggle  with  France, 
not  only  to  the  fact  that  the  danger  to  the  empire  and  the 
great  interests  at  stake  had  fired  the  imagination  of  many 
a  participant,  but  still  more  to  the  other  fact  that  the  body 
of  officers  contained  a  much  larger  proportion  of  thoughtful 
and  serious  men  than  it  had  ever  done  before.  And  the 
same  was  the  case  mutatis  mutandis  with  the  rank  and  file 

*  Seo  his  curious  dispatch  from  Cartaxo  dated  February  6tli, 
1811,  concerning  preaching  officers. 

t  He  describes  himself  as  “  rolling  on  the  floor  like  one  distracted, 
with  the  pains  of  hell  getting  hold,  and  hope  seeming  to  be  for  ever 
shut  out  of  my  mind.” — Surtees,  p.  172. 

i  He  calls  his  little  book  Memoir  of  a  Sergeant  late  of  the  43 rd 
Light  Infantry,  previously  to  and  during  the  Peninsular  W ar,  including 
an  account  of  his  Conversion  from  Popery  to  the  Protestant  Religion. 

§  John  Stevenson  of  the  Scots  Fusilier  Guards. 


8 


The  Old  Peninsular  Army 


also.  Not  but  what — of  course — some  of  the  most  interest¬ 
ing  information  is  supplied  to  us  by  cheerful  and  garrulous 
rattlepates  of  a  very  different  type,  who  had  been 
attracted  into  the  service  by  the  adventure  of  the  soldier’s 
life,  and  record  mainly  its  picturesque  or  its  humorous 
side. 


CHAPTER  II 


SOURCES  OF  INFORMATION — THE  LITERATURE  OF  TIIE 
PENINSULAR  WAR 

It  will  be  well,  perhaps,  to  give  a  short  account  of  the  main 
sources  from  which  our  knowledge  of  the  Peninsular  Army 
is  derived.  The  official  ones  must  be  cited  first.  The  most 
important  of  all  are,  naturally  enough,  the  Wellington 
Dispatches.  Of  these  there  are  two  series  ;  the  first,  in  twelve 
volumes,  was  published  during  the  Duke’s  lifetime  by 
Colonel  Gurwood  between  1837  and  1839.  The  second,  or 
supplementary  series,  in  fifteen  volumes,  was  published 
with  copious  notes  by  the  second  Duke  of  Wellington 
between  1858  and  1872. 

The  series  edited  by  Gurwood  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  every  student  of  the  Peninsular  War,  but  is  most  tire¬ 
some  to  handle,  and  is  by  no  means  complete.  The  Duke 
forbade  the  publication  of  a  great  number  of  his  more  con¬ 
fidential  letters,  and  ordered  portions  of  others  to  be  omitted. 
He  had  a  strong  notion  that  a  great  deal  of  historical  in¬ 
formation  could  be,  and  ought  to  be,  suppressed  ;  this  fact 
has  caused  much  trouble  to  the  modern  historian,  who 
wishes  to  obtain  not  a  mere  official  and  expurgated  view  of 
the  war,  but  a  full  and  complete  survey  of  it.  To  show 
Wellington’s  attitude  it  may  be  sufficient  to  quote  his 
answer  to  William  Napier,  who  asked  for  leave  to  utilize 
all  his  papers.  “  He  could  not  tell  the  whole  truth  without 
hurting  the  feelings  of  many  worthy  men,  and  without 
doing  mischief.  Expatiating  on  the  subject,  he  related 
many  anecdotes  illustrating  this  observation,  showing  errors 


10  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


committed  by  generals  and  others — especially  at  Waterloo 
— errors  so  materially  affecting  liis  operations  that  he  could 
not  do  justice  to  himself  if  he  suppressed  them,  and  yet 
by  giving  them  publicity  he  would  ungraciously  affect 
the  favour  of  many  worthy  men,  whose  only  fault  was 
dullness.”  * 

The  Gurwood  edition  of  the  dispatches  was  published 
some  fifteen  years  after  Napier  made  his  application,  but 
numbers  of  the  old  Peninsular  officers  were  still  alive,  and 
the  Duke  adhered  to  his  already-expressed  opinion  that  it 
would  not  be  well  to  expose  old  quarrels  and  old  blunders. 
Paragraphs,  accordingly,  are  often  omitted  in  the  reprint, 
and  in  a  large  majority  of  cases,  where  blame  was  imputed 
or  reproofs  administered  to  any  individual,  the  name  was 
left  blank.  This  makes  the  edition  most  tiresome  to  read. 
It  is  exasperating  to  find  that  e.g.  “  nothing  has  given  me 
more  concern  in  the  late  operations  than  the  conduct  of 

Lieut.-Colonel - of  the - Regt.”f  or  that  “no  means 

exists  of  punishing  military  disorders  and  irregularities  of 

the  kind  committed  by  Brigadier  General - and  Colonel 

- .”  Or  again,  when  Wellington  writes  to  the  Patronage 

Secretary  at  the  Horse  Guards  that  “  I  am  much  obliged  to 

you  for  relieving  me  from  Major-General - and  Colonel 

- .  I  have  seen  General  -  and  I  think  he  will  do 

very  well,  and  so  will - ”  $ ;  or  that  “ - appears  to  be  a 

kind  of  madman,”  and  “ - is  not  very  wise,”  the  reader 

is  reduced  to  despair.  The  only  way  of  discovering  the 
names,  which  are  often  those  of  officers  of  high  rank,  who 
figure  repeatedly  in  any  narrative  of  the  Peninsular  War, 
is  to  go  to  the  original  dispatches  at  the  Record  Office,  or, 
when  the  communication  is  a  private  and  not  a  public  one, 
to  the  letters  at  Apsley  House.  Meanwhile,  few  have  the 
leisure  or  the  patience  to  do  this,  so  that  Wellington’s 
judgments  on  his  lieutenants  are  still  practically  inaccessible. 

It  was,  perhaps,  still  necessary  to  leave  all  these  blanks 

*  Life  of  Sir  W.  Napier,  i.  235,  236. 

•j-  Dispatches,  vii.  p.  559.  J  Ibid.  vi.  p.  485. 


Gurwood  and  the  Duke’s  Dispatches  11 


in  1837.  And  Gurwood  was  no  doubt  acting  in  strict 
obedience  to  the  Duke’s  orders.  But  nothing  can  excuse 
his  own  slack  editing  of  the  massive  tomes  that  he  published. 
There  are  no  tables  of  contents  to  the  volumes,  nor  does 
the  title  page  of  each  indicate  the  dates  between  which  it 
runs.  To  find  out  which  volume  will  contain  a  letter  of 
November,  1810,  we  must  take  down  Vols.  VI.  and  VII., 
and  see  from  the  date  of  the  last  dispatch  in  one  and  the 
first  in  the  other,  when  the  break  comes.  Supposing  we 
wish  to  discover  how  many  communications  were  sent  to 
Graham  or  Spencer  in  1811,  there  is  no  other  way  of  achiev¬ 
ing  our  object  than  running  through  every  page  of  the  two 
volumes  in  which  the  correspondence  of  that  year  is  con¬ 
tained  !  There  is  a  so-called  index  to  the  whole  series, 
but  it  is  practically  useless,  from  the  small  number  of 
headings  given.  The  reader  will  look  in  it  vainly  for  obvious 
places-names  such  as  Chaves,  Casal  Novo,  Castello  Branco, 
Vera,  St.  Pierre,  for  personal  names  such  as  Lapisse,  Latour 
Maubourg,  Bonnet,  Montbrun,  Abadia,  Penne-Villemur, 
O’Donnell,  Del  Parque,  Erskine,  Anson,  Victor  Alten, 
Barnard,  Beckwith.  On  the  other  hand  he  will  find  silly 
headings  such  as  under  L,  “Lies,  encouragement  of,”  or 
under  I,  “  Invincibility  of  British  Troops.”  Perhaps  the 
most  ridiculous  entry  in  this  absurd  compilation  is  that  of 
“  Light  Division,”  to  which  there  is  annexed  just  one 
note,  “  satisfactory  conduct  of,  on  April  C,  1811,”  as  if  that 
was  the  sole  occasion  on  which  it  was  necessary  to  mention 
that  distinguished  unit  of  the  British  army.  There  are  no 
headings  under  regiments  at  all,  so  that  if  one  'wishes  to 
see  what  the  Duke  said  about  the  52nd  or  the  Black  Watch, 
one  simply  gets  no  help. 

But  there  is  another  trick  of  Gurwood’s  which  is  even 
worse  than  his  want  of  tables  of  contents  or  adequate 
index-entries.  He  omitted  all  the  elaborate  statistics 
which  used  to  accompany  the  Duke’s  dispatches,  without 
exception.  The  beautiful  tables  of  casualties  which 
explain  the  distribution  of  losses  between  regiments  and 


12  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


divisions,  are  in  every  case  boiled  down  into  three  bald 
totals  of  “  killed,  wounded,  and  missing,”  for  the  whole 
army,  no  indication  of  units  being  left.  Even  Lord  London¬ 
derry’s  modest  two  volumes,  the  first  attempt  at  a  general 
history  of  the  Peninsular  War,  give  far  more  useful  in¬ 
formation  on  the  all-important  topics  of  strengths  and 
losses  than  all  Gurwood’s  tomes.  Eor  that  sensible  author 
rightly  saw  that  nothing  could  be  more  serviceable  to  the 
reader  than  an  occasional  table  of  the  organization  and 
numbers  of  the  whole  allied  army,  and  that  the  detailed 
casualty-list  of  such  a  fight  as  Talavera  or  Albuera  is 
indispensable.  The  purblind  Gurwood  preferred  to  put  in 
a  note,  “  the  detail  of  divisions,  regiments,  and  battalions 
has  been  omitted,  being  too  voluminous,”  *  when  he  was 
dealing  with  an  important  return.  The  historian  owes 
him  small  thanks  for  his  precious  opinion. 

It  is  an  immense  relief  to  pass  from  Gurwood’s  ill- 
arranged  work  to  the  volumes  of  the  Wellington  Supple¬ 
mentary  Dispatches,  which  were  published  by  the  second 
Duke  between  1858  and  1872.  Though  the  mass  of 
Peninsular  material  contained  in  this  series  is  comparatively 
small,  it  comprises  a  great  quantity  of  familiar  and  private 
correspondence,  which  had  been  deliberately  omitted  from 
the  earlier  publication.  And,  moreover,  it  is  admirably 
edited  ;  the  second  Duke  knew  what  was  important  and 
what  required  explanation,  appended  valuable  and 
copious  notes,  and  was  able  (since  the  elder  generation  was 
now  practically  extinct)  to  abandon  the  exasperating 
reticence  used  by  Gurwood.  Moreover,  he  added  a  vast 
quantity  of  letters  written  not  by,  but  to,  his  father,  which 
serve  to  explain  the  old  Duke’s  sometime  cryptic  replies 
to  his  correspondents.  Even  a  few  necessary  French 
documents  have  been  added.  Altogether  these  volumes 
are  excellent,  and  make  one  wish  that  the  editing  of  the 
whole  of  the  Wellington  papers  had  fallen  into  the  same 
hands. 

*  This  preposterous  remark  may  be  found  on  p.  28  of  vol.  vi. 


Wellington’s  “  General  Orders  ” 


13 


Tliere  is  a  third  series  of  Official  publications  which 
though  not  so  “  generally  necessary  for  salvation  ”  as  the 
Dispatches,  for  any  student  of  the  Peninsular  War,  is  very 
valuable  and  needs  continually  to  be  worked  up.  This  is 
the  seven  volumes  of  General  Orders,  from  1809  to  1815, 
which  are  strictly  contemporary  documents,  as  they  were 
collected  and  issued  while  the  war  was  in  progress — the 
1809-10  volumes  were  printed  in  1811,  the  1811  volume 
in  1812,  and  so  on.  The  last,  or  Waterloo  volume,  had  the 
distinction  of  being  issued  by  the  British  Military  Press  in 
Paris,  “  by  Sergeant  Buchan,  3rd  Guards,”  as  printer. 
The  General  Orders  contain  not  only  all  the  documents 
strictly  so  called,  the  notices  issued  by  the  commander- 
in-chief  for  the  army,  but  an  invaluable  precis  of  all  courts- 
martial  other  than  regimental  ones,  and  a  record  of  pro¬ 
motions,  gazettings  of  officers  to  regiments,  rules  as  to  issue 
of  pay  and  rations,  and  directions  as  to  all  matters  of  detail 
relating  to  organization,  hospitals,  depots,  stores,  routes, 
etc.  If  any  one  wishes  to  know  on  what  day  the  42nd  was 
moved  from  the  first  to  the  second  division,  when  precisely 
General  Craufurd  got  leave  to  go  home  on  private  business, 
what  was  the  accepted  value  of  the  Spanish  dollar  or  the 
Portuguese  Cruzado  Novo  at  different  dates,  when  expressed 
in  English  money,  or  what  was  the  bounty  given  when  a 
time-expired  man  consented  to  renew  his  service  for  a 
limited  period,  these  are  the  volumes  in  which  he  will  find 
his  curiosity  satisfied.  They  cannot  be  called  interesting 
reading — but  they  contain  facts  not  elsewhere  to  be 
found. 

There  is  an  exactly  corresponding  series  of  General 
Orders  for  the  Portuguese  Army,  in  six  yearly  volumes, 
called  Or  dens  do  Dia  :  it  was  issued  by  Marshal  Beresford, 
and  contains  all  the  documents  signed  by  him.  Whenever 
a  student  is  interested  in  the  career  of  one  of  the  numerous 
British  officers  in  the  Portuguese  service,  he  must  seek 
out  the  records  of  his  doings  in  these  volumes.  They  are 
,not  easy  tp  work  in,  as  they  have  no  yearly  indices,  and 


14  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


much  patience  is  required  to  discover  isolated  notices  of 
individuals.  These  volumes  are  practically  inaccessible  in 
England.  It  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  a  Lisbon 
friend  hunted  me  up  a  copy  after  long  search,  and  I  am  not 
aware  that  there  is  another  on  this  side  of  the  sea.  But  by 
its  use  only  can  we  trace  the  service  of  any  Anglo-Portu- 
guese  officer.  There  was  supposed  to  be  an  “  Ordem  ” 
every  morning,  and  when  nothing  was  forthcoming  in  the 
way  of  promotions,  court-martial  reports,  or  decrees,  Beres- 
ford’s  chief  of  the  staff  used  to  publish  a  solemn  statement 
that  there  was  no  news,  as  thus — 

Quartel-General  de  Chamusca,  7.  1.  1811. 

Nada  de  novo. 

Adjudante-General  Mosinho. 

This  happened  on  an  average  about  twice  a  week. 

In  addition  to  these  printed  series  there  is  an  immense 
amount  of  unprinted  official  correspondence  in  the  Record 
Office  which  bears  on  the  Peninsular  War.  It  will  be  found 
not  only  in  the  War  Office  section,  but  in  those  belonging 
to  the  Foreign  Office  and  the  Admiralty.  As  an  example 
of  the  mysteries  of  official  classification,  I  may  mention 
that  all  documents  relating  to  French  prisoners  will  have 
to  be  looked  for  among  the  Admiralty  records,  under  the 
sub-headings  Transport  and  Medical.  If,  as  occasionally 
happens,  one  wishes  to  find  out  the  names  and  regiments 
of  French  officers  captured  on  some  particular  occasion, 
e.g.  Soult’s  retreat  from  Oporto,  or  the  storm  of  Badajoz, 
it  is  to  the  Admiralty  records  that  one  must  go  !  Officers 
can  always  be  identified,  but  it  is  a  herculean  task  to  deal 
with  the  rank  and  file,  for  they  used  to  be  shot  into  one  of 
the  great  prisons,  Norman’s  Cross,  Porchester,  Stapleton, 
etc.,  in  arbitrary  batches,  with  no  regard  to  their  regimental 
numbers.  It  would  take  a  week  to  hunt  through  the 
prison  records  with  the  object  of  identifying  the  number 
of  privates  of  the  34th  Leger  captured  at  Rodrigo,  since 
they  may  have  gone  in  small  parties  to  any  one  of  a  dozen 


The  Record  Office  and  its  Wealth  15 


destinations.  Many  of  the  prison  registers  have  lost  one 
or  other  of  their  outer-boards,  and  the  handling  of  them 
is  a  grimy  business  for  the  fingers,  since  they  are  practically 
never  consulted. 

While  nearly  the  whole  of  the  Wellington  dispatches 
have  been  printed,  it  is  only  a  small  part  of  the  Duke’s  “  en¬ 
closures  ”,  added  to  each  dispatch,  that  have  had  the  same 
good  fortune.  These  always  repay  a  cursory  inspection, 
and  are  often  highly  important.  The  greater  part  of  Sir 
John  Moore’s  correspondence  with  Lord  Castlereagh,  and 
many  dispatches  of  Moore’s  subordinates — Baird,  Leith,  and 
Lord  W.  Bentinck — with  a  number  of  valuable  returns 
and  statistics, — are  printed  in  a  large  volume  entitled  Papers 
Relative  to  Spain  and  Portugal ,  Presented  to  Parliament 
in  1809.”  There  are,  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge,  no 
similar  volumes  relating  to  Graham’s  campaign  from  Cadiz 
in  1811,  or  Maitland’s  and  Murray’s  operations  on  the  east 
side  of  Spain  in  1813-14.  A  good  deal  of  information 
about  the  latter,  however,  may  be  got  from  the  enormous 
report  of  the  court-martial  on  Murray,  for  his  wTetched 
fiasco  at  the  siege  of  Tarragona,  which  is  full  of  valuable 
facts.  The  details  of  the  other  minor  British  enterprises 
in  the  Peninsula — such  as  those  of  Doyle,  Skerret,  Sir 
Home  Popham,  and  Lord  Blayney,  all  remain  in  manuscript, 
— readily  accessible  to  the  searcher,  but  not  too  often  con¬ 
sulted.  The  Foreign  Office  section  at  the  Record  Office 
is  highly  valuable  not  only  to  the  historian  of  diplomacy, 
but  to  the  purely  military  historian,  because  Stuart, 
Vaughan,  Henry  Wellesley,  and  the  other  representatives 
of  the  British  Government  at  Madrid,  Seville,  and  Cadiz, 
used  to  send  home,  along  with  their  own  dispatches,  number¬ 
less  Spanish  documents.  These  include  not  only  official 
papers  from  the  Regency,  but  private  documents  of  great 
value,  letters  from  generals  and  statesmen  who  wish  to 
keep  the  British  agent  informed  as  to  their  views,  when  they 
have  clashed  with  the  resolves  of  their  own  government. 
There  are  quite  a  number  of  military  narratives  by  Spanish 


16  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 

officers,  who  are  set  on  excusing  themselves  from  respon¬ 
sibility  for  the  disasters  of  their  colleagues.  And  the 
politicians  sometimes  propose,  in  private  and  confidential 
minutes,  very  curious  plans  and  intrigues.  Sir  Charles 
Vaughan  kept  a  certain  number  of  these  confidential  papers 
in  his  own  possession  when  he  left  Cadiz,  and  did  not  turn 
them  over  to  the  Foreign  Office.  They  lie,  along  with 
his  private  correspondence,  in  the  Library  of  All  Souls’ 
College,  Oxford. 

Since  we  are  dealing  with  the  British  army,  not  with 
the  general  history  of  the  Peninsular  War,  I  need  only 
mention  that  unpublished  documents  by  the  thousand, 
relating  to  the  French,  Spanish,  and  Portuguese  armies, 
may  be  found  at  Paris,  Madrid,  and  Lisbon,  and  that  the 
researcher  is  invariably  welcomed  and  courteously  treated. 
It  may  be  worth  while  to  make  a  note,  for  the  benefit  of 
beginners,  to  the  effect  that  the  French  military  documents 
are  not  concentrated  in  one  mass,  but  are  divided  between 
the  Archives  Nationales,  and  the  Archives  de  la  Guerre  at 
the  Ministry  of  War.  If  a  return  or  a  dispatch  is  not  to 
be  found  in  one  of  these  repositories,  it  may  yet  turn  up 
in  the  other.  The  Spanish  records  are  very  “  patchy,” 
full  on  some  campaigns,  almost  non-existent  on  others. 
For  example,  the  documents  on  the  luckless  Ocana  cam¬ 
paign  of  1809  are  marvellously  few  ;  there  does  not  exist 
a  single  complete  “  morning  state  ”,  by  regiments  and 
divisions,  of  Areizaga’s  unhappy  army.  I  fancy  that  the 
whole  of  the  official  papers  of  his  staff  were  captured  in  the 
rout,  and  destroyed  by  ignorant  plunderers — they  did  not 
get  into  the  French  collections.  Hence  there  have  only 
survived  the  few  dispatches  which  Areizaga  and  some  of 
his  subordinates  sent  to  the  Spanish  Ministry  of  War. 

So  much  for  Official  Records.  Passing  on  to  the  publi¬ 
cations  of  individual  actors  in  the  war,  we  must  draw  a 
sharp  line  between  those  which  were  issued  during  or  imme¬ 
diately  after  the  campaigns  with  which  they  deal,  and  those 


Contemporary  Journals  17 

which  were  written  down,  with  or  without  the  aid  of  con¬ 
temporary  notes  or  journals,  many  years  after.  The  former, 
of  course,  possess  a  peculiar  interest,  because  the  writers’ 
narrative  is  not  coloured  by  any  knowledge  of  what  is  yet 
to  come.  An  officer  writing  of  Corunna  or  Talavera  with 
the  memory  of  Vittoria  and  Waterloo  upon  him,  necessarily 
took  up  a  different  view  of  the  war  from  the  man  who  set 
down  his  early  campaign  without  any  idea  of  what  was  to 
follow.  Early  checks  and  hardships  loom  larger  in  the 
hour  of  doubt  and  disappointment,  than  when  the  recol¬ 
lection  of  them  has  been  dimmed  by  subsequent  hours  of 
triumph.  The  early  material,  therefore,  is  very  valuable, 
but  it  is  not  so  copious  as  that  which  was  written  down 
later,  and  it  largely  exists  in  the  form  of  letters  and  diaries, 
both  of  which  are  less  readable  than  formal  narratives. 
As  good  types  of  this  sort  of  material  we  may  name  Ormsby’s 
and  Ker-Porter’s  Journals  of  the  Campaign  of  1S08-09, 
Hawkers’  Journal  of  the  Talavera  Campaign,  Stothert’s 
Diary  of  1809-11,  and  General  MacKinnon’s  Journal  of 
the  same  three  years,  all  of  which  were  published  within  a 
few  months  of  the  last  entry  which  each  contains.  Next 
to  these  come  the  books  which  consist  of  contemporary 
material,  published  without  alteration  from  the  original 
manuscripts,  but  only  many  years  after  they  had  been 
written.  The  best  of  these  for  hard  facts,  often  facts  not 
to  be  found  elsewhere,  is  the  diary  of  Tomkinson  of  the 
16th  Light  Dragoons  :  * * * §  with  it  may  be  mentioned  the 
Journal  of  George  Simmons  of  the  95th,  published  in  1899 
with  the  title,  “  A  British  Rifle  Man,”  f  the  Journals  of  Sir 
William  Gomm,  1 808-15, J  Sir  George  Warre’s  Letters 
of  1808-12, §  which  only  saw  the  light  two  years  ago,  and 
Larpent’s  Private  Journal,  printed  in  1S52.||  These  volumes 

*  Only  printod  in  1894. 

t  Edited  by  Col.  Willoughby  Verner. 

j  Published  1881.  Invaluable  as  a  private  rocord  for  the  staff. 

§  Edited  by  his  kinsman,  the  present  Provost  of  Eton. 

||  Larpont  was  a  lawyer  who  acted  as  Wellington’s  Judge  Advo¬ 
cate. 


C 


18  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 

all  have  short  notes  by  the  editors,  but  the  text  is  the  writing 
of  the  Peninsular  time,  untampered  with  and  unaltered. 

These  books  and  their  minor  contemporaries  stand  in 
a  class  by  themselves,  as  contemporary  material  reflecting 
accurately  the  spirit  of  the  times.  Much  more  numerous, 
however,  are  the  books  which,  though  produced  by  actors 
in  the  Great  War,  appeared  at  dates  more  or  less  remote 
from  the  years  whose  events  they  narrate.  The  formal 
histories  are  comparatively  few,  the  reason  being  that 
Napier’s  magnificent  (if  somewhat  prejudiced  and  biassed) 
volumes  completely  put  off  other  possible  authors,  who 
felt  that  they  lacked  his  genius  and  his  power  of  expression, 
from  the  idea  of  writing  a  long  narrative  of  the  war  as  a 
whole.  This  was  a  misfortune,  since  the  one  book  which 
all  students  of  military  history  are  thereby  driven  to  read, 
was  composed  by  a  bitter  political  partisan,  who  is  set  on 
maligning  the  Tory  government,  has  an  altogether  ex¬ 
aggerated  admiration  for  Napoleon,  and  owned  many 
personal  enemies  in  the  British  army,  who  receive  scant 
justice  at  his  hands.  At  the  same  time  we  must  be  grateful 
that  the  work  was  written  by  one  who  was  an  actual 
witness  of  many  of  the  campaigns  that  he  relates,  con¬ 
scientiously  strove  to  get  at  all  other  first-hand  witnesses, 
and  ransacked  the  French  as  well  as  the  British  official 
papers,  so  far  as  he  could  obtain  access  to  them.  The  merits 
of  his  style  are  all  his  own,  and  will  cause  the  History  of 
the  Peninsular  War  to  be  read  as  an  English  classic,  as 
Clarendon’s  History  of  the  Great  Rebellion  is  read,  even 
when  research  has  shown  (as  in  Clarendon’s  case)  that 
much  of  the  narrative  needs  reconstruction,  and  that  the 
general  thesis  on  which  it  is  constructed  lacks  impartiality. 

The  only  other  general  histories  of  the  war  which 
appeared  were  Southey’s  (three  vols.  published  1832)  and 
Lord  Londonderry’s.*  The  former  was  written  by  a  literary 
man  without  any  military  experience,  who  had  seen  nothing 

*  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  mention  Jones’s  slight  Sketch  (1818) 
or  Goddard’s  mass  of  undigested  contemporary  material  (1814). 


Napier,  Southey,  and  Lord  Londonderry  19 

of  the  Peninsula  during  the  years  of  the  struggle,  and  had 
as  almost  his  only  merit,  a  good  knowledge  of  the  Spanish 
sources,  of  which  he  was  too  uncritical.  The  book  fell 
dead,  being  unable  to  compete  with  Napier,  and  lacking  all 
the  authority  of  personal  knowledge  which  was  the  latter’s 
strong  point.  The  smaller  book  of  Lord  Londonderry 
(two  volumes,  published  1829)  is  by  no  means  without  merit, 
but  has  many  faults,  always  hovering  on  the  edge  between 
formal  history  and  personal  reminiscences.  Wherever 
Charles  Stewart  had  not  been  present,  he  passes  lightly  over 
the  episodes  of  war,  and  obviously  had  taken  no  very  great 
pains  to  collect  first-hand  material.  At  the  same  time  the 
book  has  value,  as  giving  the  views  of  a  highly-placed  staff 
officer,  who  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  every  episode 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Head  Quarters,  and  had  strong 
convictions  and  theories  of  his  own.  He  had  also  the  saving 
grace  of  loving  statistics,  and  printed  many  valuable 
appendices  of  “  morning  states  ”  and  casualty-lists,  things 
of  which  Napier  was  far  too  sparing,  and  which  Gurwood 
suppressed  altogether.  As  a  general  record  the  book  could 
not  cope  with  Napier,  and  has  been  forgotten — somewhat 
undeservedly — no  less  than  Southey’s  vast  quartos.  There 
is  absolutely  no  other  general  history  by  a  contemporary 
which  needs  mention.  Of  course  I  omit  foreign  sources, 
which  help  us  little  with  regard  to  the  British  army,  though 
they  are  indispensable  for  a  general  study  of  the  war.  Foy’s 
unfinished  Guerre  de  la  Peninsule,  if  we  may  judge  from  the 
volumes  which  appeared  before  his  death,  would  have  been 
a  very  prejudiced  affair — his  account  of  the  British  troops 
in  Vol.  I.  is  a  bitter  satire,  contrasting  oddly  enough  with 
his  confessions  concerning  their  merits  in  his  Journal,  of 
which  a  large  portion  was  published  a  few  years  ago  by 
Girod  de  l’Ain  under  the  title  Vie  Militaire  du  General  Foy. 
After  all  the  detraction  in  his  formal  history,  it  is  interesting 
to  read  the  frank  letter  which  says,  in  1811,  that  for  a  set 
battle  on  a  limited  front  he  acknowledges  the  superiority 
of  the  English  infantry  to  the  French,  “  I  keep  this  opinion 


20  Literature  op  the  Peninsular  War 


to  myself,”  he  adds,  “  and  have  never  divulged  it,  for  it 
is  necessary  that  the  soldier  in  the  ranks  should  not  only 
hate  his  enemy,  but  also  despise  him.”  *  Foy  kept  the 
opinion  so  closely  to  himself,  that  no  one  would  have 
suspected  it  who  had  read  only  his  formal  history  of  the 
Peninsular  War. 

Another  French  general  history  is  Marshal  Jourdan’s 
Guerre  d’Espagne,  issued  only  ten  years  ago  by  the  Vicomte 
de  Grouchy,  though  large  parts  of  it  had  been  utilized  in 
Dueasse’s  Life  and  Correspondence  of  King  Joseph  Bona¬ 
parte.  This  covers  the  whole  war  down  to  Vittoria,  and 
is  notable  for  its  acute  and  often  unanswerable  criticism  of 
Soult  and  Massena,  Marmont,  and,  not  least,  of  Napoleon 
himself.  It  is  less  satisfactory  as  a  vindication  of  Jourdan’s 
own  doings.  Marmont’s  autobiography  only  covers  his  fifteen 
months  of  command  from  May,  1811,  to  July,  1812 :  while 
St.  Cyr’s  and  Suchet’s  very  interesting  accounts  of  their 
own  periods  of  activity  relate  entirely  to  Catalonia  and  the 
eastern  side  of  the  Peninsula.  St.  Cyr  does  not  touch 
British  affairs  at  all ;  Suchet  treats  his  campaigns  against 
Maitland  and  Murray  in  a  much  more  cursory  style  than 
his  previous  successes  against  the  Spanish  armies. |  The 
other  French  formal  narratives  by  contemporaries  and 
eye-witnesses  are  for  the  most  part  monographs  on  particular 
campaigns  in  which  the  writers  took  part — such  as  Thie- 
bault’s  work  on  Junot  in  Portugal — full  of  deliberate 
inaccuracies — which  was  published  in  1817,  and  Lapene’s 
Conquete  d’Andalousie,  en  1810-12,  and  Campagnes  de 
1813-14  (both  published  in  1823  in  volumes  of  different 
size)  which  deal  only  with  the  army  of  Soult.  There  are, 
however,  two  general  histories  by  German  officers — Schepeler 
(who  served  with  the  Spaniards),  and  Riegel  (who  served 
with  the  French) — which  both  require  mention.  The  former 
is  especially  valuable.:]: 

*  Journal  in  Girod  de  l’Ain,  p.  98. 

f  His  well-written  two  volumes  (issued  1829)  are  said  to  have 
been  very  largely  the  work  of  his  aide-de-camp,  St.  Cyr-Nugues. 

J  Vacani’s  Italian  general  history  of  the  war  is  very  slight  on  the 


Toreno,  Belmas,  John  Jones  21 

Among  Peninsular  historians  two  deserve  special  notice. 
The  Conde  de  Toreno,  a  Spanish  statesman  who  had  taken 
part  in  the  war  as  a  young  man,  produced  in  1838  three 
massive  volumes  which  are,  next  to  Napier,  the  greatest 
book  that  makes  this  war  its  subject.  He  is  a  first-hand 
authority  of  great  merit,  and  should  always  be  consulted 
for  the  Spanish  version  of  events.  He  was  a  great  master 
of  detail,  and  yet  could  paint  with  a  broad  brush.  It  is 
sometimes  necessary  to  remember  that  he  is  a  partisan, 
and  has  his  favourites  and  his  enemies  (especially  La 
Romana)  among  the  generals  and  statesmen  of  Spain. 
But  on  the  whole  he  is  a  historian  of  high  merit  and 
judgment.  With  Toreno’s  work  must  be  mentioned  the 
five  small  volumes  of  the  Portuguese  Jose  Accursio  das 
Neves,  published  in  1811,  when  Massena  had  but  just 
retreated  from  before  the  Lines  of  Torres  Vedras.  This  is 
a  very  full  and  interesting  description  of  Junot’s  invasion 
of  Portugal,  and  of  the  sufferings  of  that  realm  which 
came  to  an  end  with  the  Convention  of  Cintra.  It  is 
the  only  detailed  picture  of  Portugal  in  1808.  Unfortu¬ 
nately  the  author  did  not  complete  the  story  of  1809-10. 

At  the  end  of  this  note  on  historical  works,  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  memoirs  or  diaries  of  adventure,  we  must 
name  two  excellent  books,  one  English  and  one  French, 
on  the  special  subject  of  siege  operations.  These  two 
monographs  by  specialists,  both  distinguished  engineer 
officers — Sir  John  Jones’  Journal  of  the  Sieges  in  Spain 
1811-13,  and  Colonel  Belmas’  Journaux  des  Sieges  dans 
la  Peninsule  1808-13,  published  respectively  in  ,  1827  and 
1837 — are  among  the  most  valuable  books  dealing  with  the 
Peninsular  War,  both  containing  a  wealth  of  detail  and 
explanatory  notes.  The  work  of  Belmas  is  especially  rich 
in  reprints  of  original  documents  bearing  on  the  sieges,  and 
in  statistics  of  garrisons,  losses,  ammunition  expended,  etc. 
They  were  so  complete,  and  supplemented  each  other  so 

English  side,  being  mainly  devoted  to  the  doings  of  the  Italians  in 
Catalonia. 


22  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


well,  that  little  was  done  to  add  to  the  information  that  they 
give,  till  Major  J.  Leslie’s  admirable  edition  of  the  Dickson 
Papers  began  to  appear  a  few  years  ago,  and  appreciably 
increased  our  knowledge  of  the  English  side  of  the  siege 
operations. 

Having  made  an  end  of  the  formal  histories  written 
by  contemporaries  and  eye-witnesses,  it  remains  that  we 
should  speak  of  a  class  of  literature  much  larger  in  bulk, 
and  generally  much  more  interesting,  considered  in  the  light 
of  reading  for  the  general  student — the  books  of  autobio¬ 
graphies  and  personal  reminiscences  which  were  written 
by  participants  in  the  war  some  time  after  it  had  come  to 
an  end — at  any  time  from  ten  to  forty  years  after  1814. 
Their  name  is  legion.  I  am  continually  discovering  more 
of  them,  many  of  them  printed  obscurely  in  small  editions 
and  from  local  presses,  so  that  the  very  knowledge  of 
their  existence  has  perished.  And  so  many  unpublished 
manuscripts  of  the  sort  exist,  in  France  no  less  than  in 
England,  that  it  is  clear  that  we  have  not  even  yet  got  to 
the  end  of  the  stock  of  original  material  bearing  on  the  war. 
Some  of  the  most  interesting,  e.g.  the  lively  autobiography 
of  Blakeney  of  the  28th, *  and  that  of  Ney’s  aide-de-camp 
Spriinglin,t  have  only  appeared  during  the  last  few  years. 

These  volumes  of  personal  adventures  differ  greatly 
in  value :  some  were  written  up  conscientiously  from  con¬ 
temporary  diaries  :  others  contain  only  fragments,  the  most 
striking  or  the  most  typical  incidents  of  campaigns  whose 
less  interesting  every-day  work  had  been  forgotten,  or  at 
least  had  grown  dim.  Unfortunately  in  old  age  the  memory 
often  finds  it  hard  to  distinguish  between  things  seen  and 
things  heard.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  find  a  writer  who 
represents  himself  as  having  been  present  at  scenes  where 
he  cannot  have  been  assisting,  and  still  more  frequent  to 

*  Published  under  the  rather  romantic  title  of  A  Boy  in  the 
Peninsular  War  (which  suggests  a  work  of  fiction),  by  Julian  Cor¬ 
bett,  in  1899. 

|  Published  in  the  Revue  Hispanique  in  1907. 


Inaccuracies  of  Memoir-writers 


23 


detect  him  applying  to  one  date  perfectly  genuine  anecdotes 
which  belong  to  another.  One  or  two  of  the  most  readable 
narratives  frankly  mix  up  the  sequence  of  events,  with  a 
note  that  the  exact  dating  can  not  be  reconstructed.  This 
is  notoriously  the  case  with  the  most  vivid  of  all  the  books 
of  reminiscences  from  the  ranks — the  little  volume  of 
“  Rifleman  Harris,”  whose  tales  about  General  Robert 
Craufurd  and  the  Light  Division  flow  on  in  a  string,  in  which 
chronology  has  to  take  its  chance,  and  often  fails  to  find  it. 

Another  source  of  blurred  or  falsified  reminiscences  is 
that  an  author,  writing  many  years  after  the  events  which 
he  has  to  record,  has  generally  read  printed  books  about 
them,  and  mixes  up  this  secondary  knowledge  with  the 
first-hand  tale  of  his  adventures.  Napier’s  Peninsular  War 
came  out  so  comparatively  early,  and  was  so  universally 
read,  that  screeds  from  it  have  crept  into  a  very  great 
number  of  the  books  written  after  1830.  Indeed,  some 
simple  veterans  betray  the  source  of  their  tales,  concerning 
events  which  they  cannot  possibly  have  witnessed  them 
selves,  by  repeating  phrases  or  epigrams  of  Napier’s  which 
are  unmistakeable.  Some  even  fill  up  a  blank  patch  in 
their  own  memory  by  a  precis  of  a  page  or  a  chapter  from 
the  great  history.  It  is  always  necessary  to  take  care 
that  we  are  not  accepting  as  a  corroboration  of  some  tale, 
that  which  is  really  only  a  repetition  of  it.  The  diary  of 
a  sergeant  of  the  43rd  mentioned  above,*  contains  an 
intolerable  amount  of  boiled-down  Napier.  It  is  far  more 
curious  to  find  traces  of  him  in  the  famous  Marbot,  who 
had  clearly  read  Mathieu  Dumas’  translation  when  it  came 
out  in  French. 

The  books  of  personal  adventure,  as  we  may  call  the 
whole  class,  may  roughly  be  divided  into  three  sections, 
of  decreasing  value  in  the  way  of  authority.  The  first  and 
most  important  consists  of  works  written  upon  the  base  of 
an  old  diary  or  journal,  where  the  memory  is  kept  straight 
as  to  the  sequence  of  events  by  the  contemporary  record, 

*  See  p.  7. 


24  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


and  the  author  is  amplifying  and  writing  up  real  first-hand 
material.  Favourable  examples  of  this  are  Leach’s  Rough 
Sketches  of  the  Life  of  an  Old  Soldier ,*  Leslie  of  Balquhain’s 
Military  Journal, f  which  in  spite  of  its  title  is  not  in  journal 
shape,  but  reads  as  a  continuous  narrative,  and  Sir  George 
Bell’s  Rough  Notes  of  Fifty  Years’  Service, %  all  of  which  are 
definitely  stated  by  the  authors  to  have  been  founded  on 
their  note-books  of  the  war  time,  and  therefore  can  as  a 
rule  be  treated  as  first-hand  evidence.  They  can  generally 
be  trusted  as  authorities  against  any  divergent  tales  based 
on  the  narratives  of  writers  who  wrote  their  reminiscences 
without  any  such  foundation,  and  where  they  get  off  the 
lines  of  contemporary  evidence  they  usually  give  the  reader 
warning.  For  example,  Leach  gives  valuable  material  to 
show  the  inaccuracy  of  Napier’s  exaggerated  estimate  of 
the  length  and  pace  of  the  Light  Division’s  march  to 
Talavera,  whose  erroneous  figures  have  been  repeated  in  so 
many  subsequent  books.  And  yet  Leach  was  not  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  the  data  which  he  gives  were  incompatible 
with  Napier’s  story,  and  repeats  it  in  a  general  way — 
because  he  published  his  book  several  years  after  the 
appearance  of  Napier’s  second  volume,  and  had  (like  many 
other  members  of  the  Light  Division)  absorbed  the  legend 
as  a  matter  of  faith  on  Napier’s  authority.  It  was  reserved 
for  Sir  John  Bell,§  who  had  served  under  Craufurd  but 
joined  too  late  for  Talavera,  to  explode  the  story.  But  his 
demonstration  of  its  inaccuracy  has  not  travelled  far, 
while  the  original  legend  has  gone  all  round  the  world, 
and  is  still  reproduced,  as  an  example  of  unparalleled  rapidity 
of  movement,  in  serious  military  works. 

Infinitely  less  valuable  than  the  books  founded  on 
private  diaries  or  letters  of  contemporary  date,  are  those 
which  were  written  down  long  after  the  war,  from  unaided 

*  Published  1831.  A  first-rate  authority  for  Rifle  Brigade  and 
Light  Division  matters. 

|  Of  the  29th  Regt.  Published  only  in  1887. 

i  Published  1867. 

§  Not  to  be  confused  with  Sir  George  Bell. 


Gleig,  Blakeney,  Hennegan  25 

memory  only.  They  are,  of  course,  progressively  less 
valuable  for  evidence  according  as  the  date  at  which  they 
were  indited  recedes  from  the  period  with  which  they  deal. 
Gleig’s  charming  The  Subaltern,  printed  as  early  as  1825, 
may  be  better  trusted  for  matters  of  detail  than  Blakeney ’s 
equally  vivid  narrative  written  in  the  remote  island  of 
Paxos  about  1835,  and  Blakeney  is  more  valuable  than 
Hennegan’s  highly  romantic  Seven  Years  of  Campaigning , 
published  only  in  1847,  when  thirty  winters  had  blurred 
reminiscence,  and  allowed  of  the  accretion  of  much  second¬ 
hand  and  doubtful  material  round  the  original  story.  The 
strength  of  men’s  memories  differs,  so  does  their  apprecia¬ 
tion  of  the  relative  value  of  a  dramatic  narrative  as  compared 
with  a  photographic  record  of  personal  experiences.  But 
in  a  general  way  we  must  allow  that  every  year  that  elapses 
between  the  event  and  the  setting  down  of  its  narrative 
on  paper  decreases  progressively  the  value  of  the  record. 
As  an  example  of  the  way  in  which  the  failing  powers  of 
old  age  can  confuse  even  a  powerful  memory,  we  may  men¬ 
tion  the  curious  fact  that  Wellington  himself,  twenty  years 
after  his  last  campaign,  seems  to  have  told  two  auditors 
that  he  had  visited  Bliicher’s  camp  on  the  very  eve  of 
Waterloo,  the  night  between  the  17th  and  18th  of  June, 
1815,  a  statement  quite  incredible.*  It  was  apparently 
a  blurred  memory  of  his  real  visit  to  the  Prussian  head¬ 
quarters  on  the  early  afternoon  of  the  16th,  of  which  ample 
details  are  known. 

Failing  memory,  the  love  of  a  well-rounded  tale,  a  spice 
of  autolatry,  and  an  appreciation  of  the  picturesque,  have 
impaired  the  value  of  many  a  veteran’s  reminiscences. 
Especially  if  he  is  a  well-known  raconteur,  and  has  repeated 
his  narrative  many  times  before  he  sets  it  down  on  paper, 
does  it  tend  to  assume  a  romantic  form.  The  classical 
example,  of  course,  is  Marbot,  whose  memoirs  contain 

*  See  for  a  dissection  and  disproof  of  this  story  Ropes’s  Waterloo, 
pp.  238-242,  3rd  edition.  Mr.  Horsburgh  (p.  138)  and  others  accept 
tho  story.  But  despite  Lady  Shelley’s  note  it  is  really  incredible. 


26  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


many  things  demonstrably  false,  e.g.  that  he  brought  the 
news  of  the  Dos  Mayo  insurrection  at  Madrid  to  Napoleon, 
or  that  in  1812  he  took  his  regiment  from  Moscow  to  the 
neighbourhood  of  Poltava,  and  brought  it  back  (400  miles  !) 
in  less  than  a  fortnight  with  a  convoy  of  provisions,  or  that 
he  saw  6000  men  drowned  on  the  broken  ice  of  the  lake  of 
Satschan  at  the  end  of  the  battle  of  Austerlitz.*  Marbot 
is,  of  course,  an  extreme  example  of  amusing  egotism,  but 
parallels  on  a  minor  scale  could  be  quoted  from  many  of 
his  contemporaries,  who  wrote  their  tale  too  late.  We 
may  mention  Thiebault’s  account  of  the  combat  of  Aldea 
da  Ponte,  when  he  declares  that  he  fought  17,000  Anglo- 
Portuguese  and  produced  500  casualties  in  their  ranks, 
when  he  was  really  opposed  by  one  British  brigade  and  two 
Portuguese  battalions,  who  lost  precisely  100  men  between 
them.  Yet  the  account  is  so  lengthy  and  detailed,  that  if 
we  had  not  the  British  sources  before  us,  we  should  be 
inclined  to  think  that  we  were  reading  an  accurate  narrative 
of  a  real  fight,  instead  of  a  romantic  invention  recon¬ 
structed  from  a  blurred  memory.  It  was  the  only  Penin¬ 
sular  fight  in  which  Thiebault  exercised  an  independent 
command — and  every  year  added  to  its  beauties  as  the 
general  grew  old. 

While,  therefore,  we  read  the  later-written  Peninsular 
narratives  with  interest,  and  often  with  profit,  as  reflections 
of  the  spirit  of  the  time  and  the  army,  we  must  always  be 
cautious  in  accepting  their  evidence.  And  we  must  begin 
by  trying  to  obtain  a  judgment  on  the  “  personal  equation  ” 
— was  the  author  a  hard-headed  observer,  or  a  lover  of 
romantic  anecdotes  ?  What  proportion,  if  any,  of  the  facts 
which  he  gives  can  be  proved  incompatible  with  contem¬ 
porary  records  ?  Or  again,  what  proportion  (though  not  de¬ 
monstrably  false)  seem  unlikely,  in  face  of  other  authorities  ? 
Had  he  been  reading  other  men's  books  on  a  large  scale  ? 
Of  this  the  usual  proof  is  elaborate  narrative  concerning 

*  For  a  dissection  of  Marbot’s  blunders  see  the  essay  on  his 
methods  in  Holland  Rose’s  Pitt  and  Napoleon,  pp.  156-166. 


Books  of  Regimental  Adventure  27 


events  at  which  he  cannot  possibly  have  been  present, 
with  or  without  citation  of  the  source  from  which  he  has 
obtained  the  information.  It  is  only  when  the  author  has 
passed  his  examination  with  credit  on  these  points,  that  we 
can  begin  to  treat  him  as  a  serious  authority,  and  to  trust 
him  as  evidence  for  scenes  at  which  we  know  that  he  was 
actually  present.  Many  a  writer  of  personal  adventures 
may  finally  be  given  his  certificate  as  good  authority  for 
the  annals  of  his  own  battalion,  but  for  nothing  more. 
It  is  even  possible  that  we  may  have  to  make  the  further 
restriction  that  he  may  be  trusted  on  the  lucky  days,  but  not 
on  the  less  happy  ones,  in  the  history  of  his  own  beloved 
corps.  Reticence  as  to  “  untoward  incidents  ”  is  not  un¬ 
common.  As  to  things  outside  the  regiment,  there  was 
often  a  good  deal  of  untrustworthy  gossip  abroad,  which 
stuck  in  the  memory  even  after  long  years  had  passed. 

Among  all  the  books  of  regimental  adventure,  I  should 
give  the  first  place  for  interest  and  good  writing  to  Lieut. 
Grattan’s  With  tji g  Connaught  Rangers.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  say  that  if  the  author  had  taken  to  formal  history,  his 
style,  which  is  vivid  without  exaggeration,  and  often 
dignified  without  pomposity,  would  have  made  him  a 
worthy  rival  of  Napier  as  an  English  classic.  His  descrip¬ 
tions  of  the  aspect  and  psychology  of  the  stormers  marching 
down  to  the  advanced  trenches  at  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  and  of 
the  crisis  of  the  battle  of  Salamanca,  are  as  good  as  anything 
that  Napier  ever  wrote.  A  reader  presented  with  many  of 
his  paragraphs  would  say  without  hesitation  that  they  were 
excerpts  from  the  great  historian.  Unfortunately  Grattan 
suffered  from  one  of  the  faults  which  I  have  named  above 
— he  will  give  untrustworthy  information  about  episodes 
at  which  he  was  not  present — it  is  at  best  superfluous  and 
sometimes  misleading.  But  for  what  the  88th  did  at 
Bussaco  and  Fuentes,  at  Badajoz  and  Salamanca,  he  is 
very  good  authority.  And  he  is  always  a  pleasure  to  read. 
Two  good  books — Gleig’s  The  Subaltern,  and  Moyle  Sherer’s 
Recollections  of  the  Peninsula — have  a  share  of  the  literary 


28  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


merit  of  Grattan’s  work,  but  lack  his  power.  Tliev  give 
respectively  the  day-by-day  camp  life  of  the  85th  in  1813-14, 
and  of  the  48th  in  1811-13,  in  a  pleasant  and  life-like 
fashion,  and  since  both  were  published  within  ten  years 
of  the  end  of  the  war — Gleig’s  in  1825,  Sherer’s  in  1824 — the 
writers’  memories  were  still  strong,  and  their  statements 
of  fact  may  be  relied  upon.  Both  have  the  merit  of  sticking 
closely  to  personal  experience,  and  of  avoiding  second-hand 
stories. 

Those  lively  tales  of  adventure — Kincaid’s  Adventures 
in  the  Rifle  Brigade ,  Sir  Harry  Smith’s  Autobiography , 
and  Blakeney’s  memoir  (which  its  editor  called  A  Boy  in 
the  Peninsular  War)  * — were  all  written  at  a  much  later  date, 
from  twenty  to  thirty  years  after  Waterloo,  and  show  their 
remoteness  from  the  time  that  they  describe  not  so  much 
by  want  of  detail,  nor  of  picturesque  power  of  description, 
— all  three  authors  were  good  wielders  of  the  pen — as  by  the 
selection  of  the  facts  that  they  record.  Much  of  the  every¬ 
day  life  of  the  regiment  has  been  forgotten  or  grown  dim, 
and  only  the  great  days,  or  the  most  striking  personal  ex¬ 
periences,  or  quaint  and  grotesque  incidents,  are  recorded. 
This  very  fact  makes  them  all  very  good  reading — they 
contain  (so  to  speak)  all  the  plums  of  the  cake  and  com¬ 
paratively  little  of  the  less  appetizing  crust.  Harry  Smith’s 
chapters  are  practically  the  tale  of  his  Odyssey  in  the  cam¬ 
paigns  of  1812-13  along  with  the  heroic  little  Spanish 
wife  whom  he  had  picked  up  and  married  at  the  storm  of 
Badajoz.  Kincaid  is  a  humourist — he  remembers  all  the 
grotesque  incidents,  ludicrous  situations,  practical  jokes, 
and  misadventures,  in  which  he  and  his  comrades  were 
concerned,  and  pours  them  out  in  a  string  of  anecdotes, 
loosely  connected  by  a  narrative  of  which  he  says  that  he 
refuses  to  be  responsible  for  the  exact  sequence  or  dating. 
It  is  very  amusing,  and  some  of  the  more  striking  stories 
can  be  verified  from  other  and  better  authorities.  But 

*  Blakeney  wrote  about  1835,  at  Paxos  in  the  Ionian  Isles  ; 
Smith  in  1844,  in  India ;  Kincaid  in  1847. 


Reminiscences  from  the  Ranks 


29 


the  general  effect  is  often  as  if  we  were  reading  a  chapter 
out  of  Lever’s  Charles  O’Malley,  or  some  such  old-fashioned 
Pensinsular  romance.  Blakeney’s  book  gives  a  better  im¬ 
pression  for  solidity,  and  he  fills  up  many  an  incident,  other¬ 
wise  know'n  to  us  only  in  outline,  with  picturesque  detail 
which  bears  every  appearance  of  truth.  But  I  have  once 
or  twice  found  his  narrative  refusing  to  square  in  with 
contemporary  documents,  and  when  this  is  the  case  the 
story  written  twenty -five  years  after  the  event  must  go  to 
the  wall.*  He  must  be  used  with  caution,  though  he  is 
giving  a  genuine  record  to  the  best  of  his  ability. 

Nearly  all  the  reminiscences  from  the  ranks  are  subject 
to  these  same  disabilities.  With  hardly  an  exception  they 
were  written  down  long  years  after  the  events  recorded. 
Usually  the  narrator  had  no  books  or  notes  to  help  him, 
and  we  get  a  genuine  tale,  uninfluenced  by  outer  sources, 
but  blurred  and  foreshortened  by  the  lapse  of  time.  The 
details  of  personal  adventure  are  perfectly  authentic  to  the 
best  of  the  veteran’s  memory  ;  incidents  of  battle,  of  camp 
hardships,  of  some  famous  court-martial  and  subsequent 
punishment-parade,  come  out  in  a  clear-cut  fashion.  But 
there  are  long  gaps  of  forgotten  months,  frequent  errors 
of  dating,  and  often  mistakes  in  the  persons  to  whom  an 
exploit,  an  epigram,  or  a  misadventure  are  attributed. 
Yet  these  little  volumes  give  the  spirit  of  the  rank  and  file 
in  the  most  admirable  fashion,  and  enable  us  to  realize  the 
inner  life  of  the  battalion  as  no  official  document  can  do. 
There  are  a  few  cases  where  the  author  has  got  hold  of  a 
book,  generally  Napier’s  great  history,  and  to  a  great 
extent  spoils  his  work  by  letting  in  passages  of  incongruous 
eloquence,  or  strategical  disquisition,  into  the  homely 
stuff  of  his  real  reminiscences. f 

*  His  extraordinarily  vivid  narrative  of  the  fortunes  of  Browne’s 
provisional  battalion  at  Barrosa  conflicts  in  detail  with  contemporary 
evidence  which  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt,  e.g.  as  to  the  numbers  of 
the  battalion,  and  as  to  the  exact  behaviour  of  General  Wliittingham. 

f  A  strong  case  is  that  of  the  sergeant  of  the  43rd,  mentioned 
above,  on  p.  7,  who  lets  in  scraps  of  Napier  into  his  patchwork 
with  the  most  unhappy  effect. 


30  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


One  soldier’s  little  volume  stands  out  from  all  the  rest 
for  its  literary  merit — it  is  the  work  of  a  man  of  superior 
education,  who  had  enlisted  in  a  moment  of  pique  and 
humiliation  to  avoid  facing  at  home  the  consequences  of 
his  own  conceit  and  folly.  This  short  story  of  150  pages 
called  Journal  of  T.  S.,  a  Soldier  of  the  list  Highland  Light 
Infantry,  1806-15,  was  written  down  as  early  as  1818,* 
when  memory  was  still  fresh.  Its  value  lies  in  the  fact 
that  the  author  wrote  from  the  ranks,  yet  was  so  different 
in  education  and  mental  equipment  from  his  comrades, 
that  he  does  not  take  their  views  and  habits  for  granted, 
but  proceeds  to  explain  and  comment  on  them.  “  I  could 
get,”  as  he  notes,  “  no  pleasure  from  their  amusements,  but 
found  it  necessary  to  humour  them  in  many  things,  and  to 
be  obliging  to  all.  I  was  thought  saucy,  and  little  courted 
by  them,  they  not  liking  my  dry  manner  as  they  called  it.” 
His  narrative  is  that  of  an  intelligent  observer  of  the  be¬ 
haviour  of  the  regiment,  in  whose  psychology  he  is  deeply 
interested,  rather  than  that  of  a  typical  soldier.  Having 
a  ready  pen  and  a  keen  observant  eye,  he  produced  a  little 
book  of  extraordinary  interest.  The  chronicle  of  his 
marches,  and  the  details  of  the  actions  which  he  relates, 
seem  very  accurate  when  compared  with  official  documents. 

Sergeant  Donaldson  of  the  94th  was  another  notable 
Scot  whose  book,  The  Eventful  Life  of  a  Soldier,  is  well  worth 
reading.  He  was  not  so  well  educated  as  T.  S.,  nor  had 
he  the  same  vivid  literary  style.  But  he  was  an  intelli¬ 
gent  man,  and  possessed  a  wider  set  of  interests  than  was 
common  in  the  ranks,  so  that  it  is  always  worth  while  to 
look  up  his  notes  and  observations.  His  description  of 
the  horrors  of  Massena’s  retreat  from  Portugal  in  1811  is 
a  very  striking  piece  of  lurid  writing.  After  him  may  be 
mentioned  a  quartermaster  and  a  sergeant — Surtees  and 
Costello — both  of  the  Rifle  Brigade, — whose  reminiscences 
are  full  of  typical  stories  reflecting  the  virtues  and  failings 

*  But  only  published  by  Constable  &  Co.  in  1828.  For  more  of 
his  story,  see  the  chapter  on  “Tho  Rank  and  File.” 


Memoirs  of  French  Veterans 


31 


of  the  famous  Light  Division.  For  the  views  and  ways  of 
thought  of  the  ordinary  private  of  the  better  sort,  the  little 
books  of  “  Rifleman  Harris,”  already  cited  above,  Lawrence 
of  the  40th,  and  Cooper  of  the  7th  Fusiliers,*  are  valuable 
authority.  They  are  admirable  evidence  for  the  way  in 
which  the  rank  and  file  looked  on  a  battle,  a  forced  march, 
or  a  prolonged  shortage  of  rations.  But  we  must  not 
trust  them  overmuch  as  authorities  on  the  greater  matter 
of  war. 

There  is  a  considerable  bulk  of  French  remini¬ 
scences  dealing  with  the  purely  British  side  of  the  Penin¬ 
sular  War.  Beside  Marbot’s  and  Thiebault’s  memoirs,  of 
which  I  have  already  made  mention,  three  or  four  more 
must  not  be  neglected  by  any  one  who  wishes  to  see  Wel¬ 
lington’s  army  from  the  outside.  By  far  the  most  vivid 
and  lively  of  them  is  Lemonnier-Delafosse  of  the  31stLeger, 
whose  Souvenirs  Militaires  were  published  at  Havre  in  1850. 
He  is  a  bitter  enemy,  and  wants  to  prove  that  Wellington 
was  a  mediocre  general,  and  ought  always  to  have  been 
beaten.  But  he  does  his  best  to  tell  a  true  tale,  and 
acknowledges  his  defeats  handsomely — though  he  thinks 
that  with  better  luck  they  might  have  been  victories. 
Failing  memory  can  be  detected  in  one  or  two  places,  where 
he  makes  an  officer  fall  at  the  wrong  battle,  or  misnames 
a  village.  Fantin  des  Odoards,  also  (oddly  enough)  of  the 
31st  Leger,  kept  a  journal,  so  that  his  reminiscences  of 
1808-11  are  very  accurate.  He  is  specially  valuable 
for  Moore’s  retreat  and  Soult’s  Oporto  campaign.  A  far 
more  fair-minded  man  than  Delafosse,  he  is  full  of  acknow¬ 
ledgments  of  the  merit  of  his  British  adversaries,  and  makes 
no  secret  of  his  disgust  for  the  Spanish  war, — a  nightmare 
of  plunder  and  military  executions  naturally  resulting  from 
an  unjust  aggression.  A  third  valuable  author  is  Colonel  St. 
Chamans,  an  aide-de-camp  of  Soult,  whom  he  cordially 

*  Sergeant  Lawrence’s  Autobiography  was  not  published  till 
188G.  Cooper’s  Seven  Campaigns  in  Portugal,  etc.,  came  out  in 
18G9. 


32  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


detested,  and  whose  meanness  and  spirit  of  intrigue  he  is 
fond  of  exposing.  He  is  of  a  light  and  humorous  spirit — 
very  different  from  another  aide-de-camp,  Ney’s  Swiss 
follower,  Spriinglin,  whose  journal  *  is  a  most  solid  and  heavy 
production,  of  value  for  minute  facts  and  figures  but  not 
lively.  Unlike  St.  Chamans  in  another  respect,  he  is  devoted 
to  his  chief,  the  Marshal,  of  whom  he  was  the  most  loyal 
admirer.  But  I  imagine  that  Ney  was  a  much  more 
generous  and  loveable  master  than  the  wily  Soult. 

Other  useful  French  volumes  of  reminiscences  are  those 
of  Guingret  of  the  6th  corps,  full  of  horrible  details  of 
Massena’s  Portuguese  misfortunes ;  of  B’lllens,  a  cavalry 
officer  who  served  against  Moore  and  Wellesley  in  1808-09  ; 
and  of  Vigo-Roussillon,  of  the  8th  Line,  who  gives  the  only 
good  French  narrative  of  Barrosa.  Parquin  is  a  mere 
sabreur,  who  wrote  his  memoir  too  late,  and  whose  anecdotes 
cannot  be  trusted.  He  survived  to  be  one  of  the  followers 
of  Napoleon  III.  in  his  early  and  unhappy  adventures  at 
Boulogne  and  elsewhere.  Other  French  writers,  such  as 
Rocca  and  Gonneville,  were  long  in  Spain,  but  little  in  con¬ 
tact  with  the  British,  being  employed  on  the  Catalan  coast, 
or  with  the  army  of  the  South  on  the  Granada  side.  So 
much  for  the  works  of  actors  in  the  Great  War,  who  relate 
what  they  have  themselves  seen.  We  need  spend  but  a 
much  smaller  space  on  the  books  of  the  later  generations, 
which  are  but  second-hand  information,  however  carefully 
they  may  have  been  compiled. 

The  British  regimental  histories  ought  to  be  of  great 
value,  since  the  series  compiled  by  the  order  of  the  Horse 
Guards,  under  the  general  editorship  of  Richard  Cannon,  in 
the  1830’s,  might  have  been  enriched  by  the  information 
obtainable  from  hundreds  of  Peninsular  veterans,  who  were 
still  surviving.  Unfortunately  nearly  every  volume  of  it 
is  no  more  than  bad  hack-work.  In  the  majority  of  the 
volumes  we  find  nothing  more  than  copious  extracts  from 
Napier,  eked  out  with  reprints  of  the  formal  reports 

*  Only  printed  quite  lately  in  the  Revue  Hispanique  for  1907. 


Regimental  Histories 


33 


taken  from  the  London  Gazette.  It  is  quite  exceptional  to 
find  even  regimental  statistics,  such  as  might  have  been 
obtained  with  ease  from  the  pay-lists  and  other  documents 
in  possession  of  the  battalion,  or  stored  at  the  Record  Office. 
Details  obtained  through  enquiry  from  veteran  officers  who 
had  served  through  the  war  are  quite  exceptional.  Some 
of  his  volumes  are  less  arid  and  jejune  than  others — and 
this  is  about  all  that  can  be  said  in  favour  of  even  the  best 
of  them. 

All  the  good  regimental  histories,  without  exception, 
are  outside  the  official  “  Cannon  ”  series.  Some  are  excel¬ 
lent  ;  it  may  be  said  that,  as  a  general  rule,  those  written 
latest  are  the  best  :  the  standard  of  accuracy  and  original 
research  has  been  rising  ever  since  1860.  Among  those 
which  deserve  a  special  word  of  praise  are  Colonel  Gardyne’s 
admirable  The  Life  of  a  Regiment  (the  Gordon  Highlanders), 
published  in  1901  ;  Cope’s  History  of  the  Rifle  Brigade 
(full  of  excerpts  from  first-hand  authorities)  which  came  out 
in  1877 ;  Moorsom’s  History  of  the  52 nd  Oxfordshire  Light 
Infantry  (the  first  really  good  regimental  history  which  was 
written),  published  in  1860;  Davis’s  History  of  the2nd  Foot 
(Queen’s  West  Surrey),  and  Colonel  Hamilton’s  14/7*  Hussars. 
By  the  time  that  these  began  to  appear,  the  level  of  research 
was  beginning  to  rise,  and  it  was  no  longer  considered 
superfluous  to  visit  the  Record  Office,  or  to  make  enquiries 
for  unpublished  papers  among  the  families  of  old  officers. 
AH  those  mentioned  above  are  large  volumes,  but  even  the 
smaller  histories  are  now  compiled  with  care,  and  their 
size  is  generally  the  result  not  of  scamped  work  (as  of  old), 
but  of  the  fact  that  some  regiments  have,  by  the  chance  of 
their  stations,  seen  less  service  than  others,  and  therefore 
have  less  to  record.  I  may  mention  as  books  on  the  smaller 
scale  which  have  proved  useful  to  me,  Hayden’s  history 
of  the  76th,  Smyth’s  of  the  20th,  and  Purdon’s  of  the  47th. 
A  rare  example  of  the  annals  of  a  smaller  unit,  a  battery 
not  a  battalion,  is  Colonel  Whinyates’  story  of  C  Troop, 
R.H.A.,  which  he  called  From  Corunna  to  Sebastopol,  in 


34  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 


which  much  loyal  and  conscientious  work  may  be  found. 
But  the  history  of  the  whole  of  the  Artillery  of  the  Peninsular 
Army,  Portuguese  as  well  as  English,  is  now  being  worked 
out  in  admirable  detail  in  the  Dickson  Papers,  edited  by 
Major  John  Leslie,  R.A.,  who  knows  everything  that  can 
be  known  about  the  units  of  his  corps  which  served  under 
Wellington.  Sir  Alexander  Dickson,  it  may  be  remarked, 
was  Commanding  Officer  of  the  Artillery  in  the  later 
campaigns  of  1813  and  in  1814,  and  before  he  obtained  that 
post  had  been  in  charge  of  all  the  three  sieges  of  Badajoz 
as  well  as  those  of  Olivenza  and  Ciudad  Rodrigo.  Since  he 
had  been  lent  to  the  Portuguese  artillery,  his  papers  give 
copious  information  as  to  the  auxiliary  batteries  of  that 
nation  which  were  attached  to  the  Peninsular  Army.  It 
is  devoutly  to  be  wished  that  some  officer  would  take  up 
a  corresponding  task  by  compiling  the  annals  of  the  Royal 
Engineers  in  the  Peninsular  War.  Connolly’s  History  of 
the  Royal  Sappers  and  Miners  (published  so  far  back  as 
1857),  has  much  good  information,  but  infinitely  more 
could  be  compiled  by  searching  the  Record  Office,  and 
collating  the  memoirs  of  Boothby,  Burgoyne,  Landmann, 
and  other  engineer  officers  who  have  left  journals  or 
reminiscences. 

Along  with  the  British  regimental  histories  should  be 
named  two  sets  of  volumes  which  are  of  the  same  type, 
though  they  relate  to  larger  units  than  a  regiment,  and  do 
not  deal  with  our  own  troops.  The  first  class  deals  with 
our  German  auxiliaries,  and  is  headed  by  Major  Ludlow 
Beamish’s  valuable  and  conscientious  History  of  the  King's 
German  Legion.  This  was  written  in  1832,  but  is  a  very 
favourable  example  of  research  for  a  book  of  the  date,  when 
Cannon’s  miserable  series  represented  the  level  of  English 
regimental  history.  The  two  volumes  contain  many  original 
letters  and  documents,  and  some  excellent  plates  of  uni¬ 
forms.  In  1907  Captain  Schwertfeger  went  over  the  same 
ground  in  his  Geschichte  der  Koniglich  Deutschen  Legion ,* 
*  Hanover,  1907,  2  vols. 


Portuguese  Authorities 


35 


and  added  appreciably  to  Beamish’s  store  of  facts.  The 
Brunswick  Oels  regiment,  which  served  Wellington  from 
1811  to  1814,  has  also  a  German  biographer  in  Colonel  Kort- 
fleisch,  who  has  served  in  the  88th  German  Infantry,  which 
now  represents  that  ancient  corps.  There  is  no  similar 
history  for  the  Chasseurs  Brittaniques,  the  last  of  the  old 
Peninsular  foreign  corps. 

For  the  Portuguese  Army  a  good  description  of  the 
state  of  affairs  in  1810,  when  it  had  just  been  reorganized, 
is  contained  in  Halliday’s  Present  State  of  Portugal,  published 
in  1812.  Chaby’s  Excerptos  Historicos  *  contains  a  good  deal 
of  valuable  material  for  its  subsequent  history,  but  is  sadly 
ill-arranged  and  patchy.  Only  the  Portuguese  artillery  in 
the  Peninsular  War  has  been  dealt  with  in  Major  Teixeira 
Botelho’s  Subsidios  para  a  Historia  da  Artilheria  Portegueza, 
which  is  very  full  and  well  documented.  The  life  of  a 
British  officer  serving  with  a  Portuguese  regiment  can  be 
studied  in  the  Memoirs  of  Bunbury  (20th  Line),f  and 
Blakiston  (5th  Ca^adoresj.J 

After  regimental  histories,  the  next  most  important 
source  of  information,  in  the  way  of  books  not  written  by 
those  who  served  under  Wellington,  is  personal  biographies. 
Captain  Delavoye’s  Life  of  Lord  Lynedoch  (Sir  Thomas 
Graham)  §  is  perhaps  the  most  useful  among  them,  not  so 
much  for  any  merit  of  style  or  arrangement,  as  for  the 
excellent  use  of  contemporary  documents  not  available 
elsewhere.  A  large  portion  of  the  volume  consists  of 
excerpts  from  Graham’s  long  and  interesting  military 
journal,  and  letters  from  and  to  him  are  printed  in  extenso. 
Thus  we  get  first-hand  information  on  many  events  at 
which  no  other  British  witness  was  present,  e.g.  Castanos’ 
campaign  on  the  Ebro  in  1808,  as  well  as  comments  on 
better  known  operations,  such  as  Sir  John  Moore’s  Corunna 

*  Published  at  Lisbon  in  4  vols.,  1862-80. 

t  His  book  is  called  Reminiscences  of  a  Veteran,  and  was  published 
so  late  as  1861. 

J  Twelve  Years  of  Military  Adventure,  published  1829. 

§  Published  in  1880. 


36  Literature  of  the  Peninsular  War 

retreat,  and  the  Barrosa  expedition  of  1811.  Unfortunately 
both  journal  and  letters  fail  for  the  campaign  of  1813,  in 
which  Graham  took  such  a  distinguished  part. 

H.  B.  Robinson’s  Memoirs  of  Sir  Thomas  Picton  *  was 
a  book  of  which  Napier  fell  foul — there  are  many  caustic 
comments  on  it  in  his  controversial  appendices.  But  it 
is  not  nearly  so  bad  a  work  as  might  have  been  expected 
from  his  way  of  treating  it.  Indeed  I  fancy  that  Napier 
was  paying  off  an  old  Light  Division  grudge  against  Picton 
himself,  whom  he  personally  disliked.  The  narrative  is 
fair,  and  the  quantity  of  contemporary  letters  inserted  give 
the  compilation  some  value.  Sidney’s  Life  of  Lord  Hill  f 
is  far  inferior  to  Robinson’s  book  :  the  author  did  not  know 
his  Peninsular  War  well  enough  to  justify  the  task  which 
he  took  in  hand,  and  the  letters,  of  which  he  fortunately 
prints  a  good  many,  are  the  only  valuable  material  in  it.  It 
is  curious  that  both  Picton  and  Hill  had  their  lives  written 
by  clergymen,  when  there  were  still  a  good  many  old  Penin¬ 
sular  officers  surviving  who  might  have  undertaken  the 
task. 

Of  the  other  chief  lieutenants  of  Wellington,  Beresford 
has  never  found  a  biographer,  though  the  part  which  he 
played  in  the  war  was  so  important.  There  must  be  an 
immense  accumulation  of  his  papers  somewhere,  in  private 
hands,  but  I  do  not  know  where  they  lie.  The  only  account 
of  him  consists  of  a  few  pages  in  a  useful  but  rather  formal 
and  patchy  little  book  by  J.  W.  Cole,  entitled,  Memoirs  of 
British  Generals  Distinguished  during  the  Peninsular  War.% 
Lord  Combermere  (Stapleton  Cotton)  was  in  high  command 
throughout  Wellington’s  campaigns,  but  was  hardly  up 
to  his  position,  though  he  earned  his  chief’s  tolerance  by 
strict  obedience  to  orders,  a  greater  merit  in  the  Duke’s 
eyes  than  military  genius  or  initiative.  There  is  a  biography 
of  him  by  Lady  Combermere  and  Captain  W.  Knollys  (1866) 
but  the  Peninsular  chapters  are  short.  Of  Sir  Lowry  Cole,  Sir 

*  Published  1835,  2  vols.  f  Published  1845. 

£  Two  vols.,  published  1856. 


Biographies  of  Gough,  Colborne,  etc.  37 

John  Gaspard  Lc  Marchant,  and  several  other  prominent 
divisional  generals  and  brigadiers,  the  only  biographies  are 
those  in  J.  W.  Cole’s  book  mentioned  above.  Sir  James 
Leith,  more  fortunate,  had  a  small  volume  dedicated  to 
his  memory  by  an  anonymous  admirer  in  1818,  but  it 
was  written  without  sufficient  material,  Leith’s  private 
correspondence  not  (as  it  seems)  being  in  the  author’s  hands, 
while  official  documents  were  not  for  the  most  part  avail¬ 
able  at  such  an  early  date.  There  is  a  good  deal,  however, 
concerning  this  hard-fighting  general’s  personality  and 
adventures  to  be  gleaned  from  the  memoirs  of  his  nephew 
and  aide-de-camp,  Leith  Hay. 

Of  officers  who  did  not  attain  to  the  highest  rank  under 
Wellington,  but  who  in  later  years  made  a  great  career  for 
themselves,  there  are  two  biographies  which  devote  a  large 
section  to  Peninsular  matters,  those  of  Lord  Gough  by 
R.  S.  Rait  (two  vols.,  1903),  and  of  Lord  Seaton  (Colborne 
of  the  52nd)  by  Moore  Smith.  These  are  both  excellent 
productions,  which  give  much  private  correspondence  of 
the  time,  and  have  been  constructed  on  modern  lines,  with 
full  attention  to  all  possible  sources  first-  and  second-hand. 
They  arc  both  indispensable  for  any  one  who  wishes  to  make 
a  detailed  study  of  the  Peninsular  campaigns.  There  are 
also  short  memoirs  of  Sir  Denis  Pack  *  and  Lord  Vivian,  f 
each  produced  by  a  grandson  of  the  general,  and  giving 
useful  extracts  from  journals  and  correspondence.  The 
campaign  of  Sir  John  Moore  can,  perhaps,  hardly  be  con¬ 
sidered  as  falling  into  the  story  of  Wellington’s  army,  but 
it  is  impossible  to  avoid  mentioning  the  full  (and  highly 
controversial)  biography  of  the  hero  of  Corunna  by  Sir 
J.  F.  Maurice, J  which  contains  an  invaluable  diary,  and 
much  correspondence.  It  is  an  indispensable  volume,  at 
any  rate,  for  those  who  wish  to  study  the  first  year  of  the 
Peninsular  War,  and  to  mark  the  difference  between  the 
personalities  and  military  theories  of  Moore  and  Wellington. 

*  By  D.  Boresford-Pack,  1905. 
t  By  Hon.  Claud  Vivian,  1897.  J  Two  vols.,  1904. 


38  Literature  op  the  Peninsular  War 


Of  formal  and  detailed  histories  of  the  Peninsular  War 
written  in  recent  years  there  is  one  in  Spanish  by  General 
Arteche,  a  very  conscientious  and  thorough-going  worker 
at  original  documents,  who  got  up  a  good  many  English 
authorities,  but  by  no  means  all.  Eor  the  Spanish  version 
of  the  whole  war  he  is  absolutely  necessary.  So,  for  the 
Portuguese  version,  is  the  immense  work  of  Soriano  da 
Luz,  which  is  largely  founded  on  Napier,  but  often  differs 
from  him,  and  brings  many  unpublished  documents  to  light. 
Colonel  Balagny  has  started  a  history  of  the  war  in  French 
on  a  very  large  scale,  delightfully  documented,  and  showing 
admirable  research.  In  five  volumes  he  has  only  just  got 
into  1809,  so  the  whole  book  will  be  a  large  one.  Mr.  For- 
tescue’s  fine  history  of  the  British  Army  has  just  started 
on  the  Peninsular  campaign  in  its  last  volume.  To  my 
own  four  volumes,  soon  I  hope  to  be  five,  I  need  only  allude 
in  passing.  There  is  one  immense  monograph  on  Dupont’s 
Campaign  by  a  French  author,  Colonel  Titeux,  which  does 
not  touch  English  military  affairs  at  all.  Two  smaller  but 
good  works  of  the  same  type  by  Colonel  Dumas  and  Com¬ 
mandant  Clerc  are  both,  oddly  enough,  dedicated  to  the 
same  campaign, — Soult’s  defence  of  the  Pyrenean  frontier 
in  1813-14  :  the  former  is  the  better  of  the  two  :  both  have 
endeavoured,  in  the  modern  fashion,  to  use  the  reports  of 
both  sides,  not  to  write  from  the  documents  of  one  only  ; 
but  Dumas  has  a  better  knowledge  of  his  English  sources 
than  Clerc. 

It  is  beyond  my  power  to  guess  why  similar  monographs 
on  separate  campaigns  of  the  war  do  not  appear  in  English 
also.  But  the  few  brochures  purporting  to  treat  of  such 
which  have  appeared  of  late  on  this  side  of  the  channel, 
are  mostly  cram-books  for  examinations,  resting  on  no  wide 
knowledge  of  sources,  and  often  consisting  of  little  more 
than  an  analysis  of  Napier,  with  some  supplementary  com¬ 
ments  hazarded.  They  contrast  very  unfavourably  with  a 
book  such  as  that  of  Colonel  Dumas. 


CHAPTER  III 


THE  DUKE  OF  WELLINGTON — THE  MAN  AND  THE  STRATEGIST 

So  much  for  our  sources.  We  may  now  proceed  to  discover 
what  we  can  deduce  from  them.  And  we  must  inevitably 
begin  with  a  consideration  of  the  great  leader  of  the  British 
army.  I  am  not  writing  a  life  of  Wellington,  still  less  a 
commentary  on  his  campaigns — with  which  I  am  trying 
to  deal  elsewhere.  My  object  is  rather  to  paint  him  as  he 
appeared  to  liis  own  army,  and  as  his  acts  and  his  writings 
reveal  him  during  the  course  of  his  Peninsular  campaigns. 
The  Arthur  Wellesley  of  1809  is  difficult  to  disentangle  in 
our  own  memories  from  the  familiar  figure  of  Victorian 
reminiscences.  We  think  of  him  as  the  “  Great  Duke,” 
the  first  and  most  honoured  subject  of  the  crown,  round 
whom  centre  so  many  stories,  more  or  less  well  founded, 
illustrating  his  disinterestedness,  his  hatred  of  phrases, 
insincerities,  sentiment,  and  humbug  generally,  his  puncti¬ 
liousness,  his  bleak  frugality,  and  his  occasional  scathing 
directness  of  speech — for  he  could  never  “  suffer  fools 
gladly.”  He  had  become  a  legend  long  before  he  died, 
and  it  takes  an  effort  of  mind  to  differentiate  the  old  man 
of  1850  from  the  general  of  1809,  who  had  still,  in  the  eyes 
of  most  men,  his  reputation  to  make.  For  those  who  under¬ 
stood  the  greatness  of  his  Indian  exploits  were  few.  It 
was  not  Napoleon  only  who  thought  that  to  call  Wellesley 
a  “  sepoy  general  ”  was  sufficient  to  reduce  his  reputation 
to  that  of  a  facile  victor  over  contemptible  enemies. 

When  he  took  command  of  the  Peninsular  Army  in  the 
April  of  that  year,  Arthur  Wellesley  was  thirty-nine :  he 


40  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 


had  just  reached  early  middle  age.  He  was  a  slight  but 
wiry  man  of  middle  stature,  well  built  and  erect,  with  a 
long  face,  an  aquiline  nose,  and  a  keen  but  cold  grey  eye. 
His  reputation  as  a  soldier  was  already  high  ;  but  few  save 
those  who  had  served  under  him  in  India  understood  the 
full  scope  of  his  abilities.  Many  undervalued  him,  because 
he  was  a  member  of  a  well-known,  but  ill-loved  family 
and  political  group,  and  had  owed  his  early  promotion  and 
opportunities  of  distinguishing  himself  to  that  fact.  ,  It 
was  still  open  to  critics  to  say  that  the  man  who  had  com¬ 
manded  a  battalion  in  the  old  Revolutionary  War  at  the 
age  of  twenty-three,  and  vlioTiacbheadediaai  army  in  India 
before  he  was  quite .  thirty ,  had  got  further  to  the  front 
than  he  deserved  by  political  (influence.  ^)And  it  was  true 
(though  the  fact  is  so  often  forgotten),  that  in  his  early 
years  he  had  got  much  help  from  his  connections,  that  he 
had  obtained  his  unique  chance  in  India  because  he  was 
the  brother  of  a  viceroy,  and  that  since  his  return  from  the 
East  he  had  been  more  of  a  politician  than  a  general.  Was 
he  not,  even  when  he  won  Vimeiro,  Secretary  for  Ireland  in 
the  Tory  government  of  the  day  ?  It  was  a  post  whose 
holder  had  to  dabble  in  much  dirty  work,  when  dealing 
with  the  needy  peers,  the  grovelling  place-mongers,  and 
the  intriguing  lawyers  of  Dublin.  Wellesley  went  through 
with  it  all,  and  not  by  any  means  in  a  conciliatory  way. 
He  passed  the  necessary  jobs,  but  did  not  hide  from  the 
jobbers  his  scorn  for  them.  When  the  Secretary  for  Ireland 
had  to  deal  with  any  one  whom  he  disliked,  he  showed  a 
happy  mixture  of  aristocratic  hauteur  and  cold  intellectual 
contempt,  which  sent  the  petitioner  away  in  a  bitter  frame 
of  mind,  whether  his  petition  had  been  granted  or  no. 
Unfortunately,  he  carried  this  maimer  from  the  Irish 
Secretaryship  on  to  the  Headquarters  of  the  Peninsular 
Army.  It  did  not  tend  to  make  him  loved. 

Fortunately  for  Great  Britain,  it  does  not  always  follow 
that,  because  a  man  has  been  pushed  rapidly  to  the  front 
by  political  influence,  he  is  therefore  incompetent  or 


Wellington  and  the  Whigs 


41 


unworthy  of  the  place  given  him.  Every  one  who  came  into 
personal  contact  with  Arthur  Wellesley  soon  recognized 
that  Castlereagh  and  the  other  ministers  had  not  erred 
when  they  sent  the  “  Sepoy  General  ”  to  Portugal  in  1808, 
and  when  they,  despite  of  all  the  clamour  following  the 
Convention  of  Cintra,  despatched  him  a  second  time  to 
Lisbon  in  1809,  this  time  with  full  control  of  the  Peninsular 
Army.  From  the  first  opening  of  his  Vimeiro  campaign 
the  troops  that  he  led  had  the  firmest  confidence  in  him— 
they  saw  the  skill  with  which  he  handled  them,  and  criticism 
very  soon  died  away.  It  was  left  for  Whig  politicians  at 
home,  carpers  with  not  the  slightest  knowledge  of  war,  to 
go  on  asserting  for  a  couple  of  years  more  that  he  was  an 
over-rated  officer,  that  he  was  rash  and  reckless,  and  that 
his  leadership  would  end,  on  some  not  very  distant  day, 
with  the  expulsion  of  the  British  army  from  the  Peninsula. 
At  the  front  there  were  very  few  such  doubters — though 
contemporary  letters  have  proved  to  me  that  one  or  two 
were  to  be  found.* 

To  say  that  Wellington  from  the  first  was  trusted  alike 
by  his  officers  and  his  men,  is  by  no  means  to  say  that  he 
was  loved  by  them.  He  did  everything  that  could  win 
confidence,  but  little  that  could.^aiti'act  alfection.  They 
recognized  that  he  was  marvellously  capable,  but  that  he 
was  without  the  supreme  gift  of  sympathy  for  others. 
“  The  sight  oi'  His  long  nose  among  us,”  wrote  one  of  his 
veterans,  “  was  worth  ten  thousand  men  any  day  of  the 
week.  I  will  venture  to  say  that  there  was  not  a  heart  in 
the  army  which  did  not  beat  more  lightly  when  we  heard 
the  joyful  news  of  his  arrival.”  f  But  this  does  not  mean 
that  he  was  regarded  with  an  enthusiasm  of  the  emotional 

*  E.g.  the  cavalry  general  Long,  who  was  writing  in  the  spring 
of  1810  that  “  the  next  campaign  in  the  Peninsula  will  close  the 
eventful  scone  in  the  Peninsula,  as  far  as  we  are  concerned.  I  am 
strongly  of  opinion  that  neither  ‘  Marshal  ’  Wellington  nor  ‘  Marshal  ’ 
Beresford  will  prevent  the  approaching  subjugation  of  Portugal.” 
And,  again,  “  Wellington,  I  suspect,  feels  himself  tottering  on  his 
throne,  and  wishes  to  conciliate  at  any  sacrifice.” 

t  Kincaid,  chap,  v.,  May,  1S11. 


42  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 


and  affectionate  sort.  Another  Light  Division  officer 
sums  up  the  position  in  the  coldest  words  that  I  have  ever 
seen  applied  to  the  relations  of  a  great  general  with  his 
victorious  army.  “  I  know  that  it  has  been  said  that 
Wellington  was  unpopular  with  the  army.  Now  I  can 
assert  with  respect  to  the  Light  Division  that  the  troops 
rather  liked  him  than  otherwise.  .  .  .  Although  Wellington 
was  not  what  may  be  called  popular,  still  the  troops  pos¬ 
sessed  great  confidence  in  him,  nor  did  I  ever  hear  a  single 
individual  express  an  opinion  to  the  contrary.”  * 

There  must,  indeed,  have  been  something  to  repel 
enthusiasm  and  affection  in  the  leader  of  whom,  after  five 
years  of  victories  won  and  hardships  suffered  in  common, 
it  could  be  said  that  his  troops  “  rather  liked  him  than 
otherwise.”  But  they  found  that  he  was  a  hard  master, 
slow  to  praise  and  swift  to  blame  and  to  punish.  Though 
he  knew  the  military  virtues  of  his  rank  and  file,  and 
acknowledged  that  they  had  more  than  once  “  got  him  out 
of  a  scrape  ”  by  performing  the  almost  impossible,  he  did 
not  love  them.  He  has  left  on  record  unpardonable  words 
concerning  his  men.  “  They  are  the  scum  of  the  earth. 
English  soldiers  are  fellows  who  have  enlisted  for  drink — 
that  is  the  plain  fact :  they  have  all  enlisted  for  drink.”  f 
Quite  as  bad  in  spirit  is  one  of  his  sayings  before  a  Royal 
Commission  on  the  Army.  “  I  have  no  idea  of  any  great 
effect  being  produced  on  British  soldiers  by  anything  but 
the  fear  of  immediate  corporal  punishment.”  Naturally 
enough  a  leader  with  such  views  never  appealed  to  the 
better  side  of  his  men  :  he  never  spoke  or  wrote  about 
honour  or  patriotism  to  them,  but  frequently  reminded 
them  of  the  lash  and  the  firing-party,  that  were  the 
inevitable  penalty  for  the  straggler,  the  drunkard,  the 
plunderer,  and  the  deserter.  Nothing  cooled  the  spirits  of 
officers  and  men  alike  more  than  the  strength  and  vigour 
of  his  rebukes,  as  compared  with  the  official  formality  of 

*  Cooke’s  Narrative  of  events  in  the  South  of  France,  pp.  47,  48. 

|  Stanhope’s  Conversations  with  the  Dulce  of  Wellington,  p.  14. 


Wellington  and  his  Men 


43 


his  terms  of  praise.  It  was  possible  to  have  a  full  apprecia¬ 
tion  of  his  marvellous  powers  of  brain,  and  a  complete 
confidence  in  him  as  a  leader,  without  feeling  the  least 
touch  of  affection  for  this  hard  and  unsympathetic  figure. 

The  distressing  point  in  all  this  is  that  the  Peninsular 
Army,  though  it  had  its  proportion  of  hardened  sots  and 
criminals,  was  full  of  good  soldiers  who  knew  what  honour 
and  loyalty  meant,  and  were  perfectly  capable  of  answering 
any  stirring  appeal  to  their  heart  or  their  brain.  There 
are  dozens  of  diaries  and  autobiographies  written  in  the 
ranks  which  show  the  existence  of  a  vast  class  of  well-con¬ 
ditioned  intelligent,  sober,  even  religious  men,  who  were 
doing  their  work  conscientiously,  and  would  have  valued 
a  word  of  praise — they  often  got  it  from  their  regimental 
officers — seldom  from  their  commander-in-chief.  And  we 
may  add  that  if  anything  was  calculated  to  brutalize  an 
army  it  was  the  wicked  cruelty  of  the  British  military 
punishment  code,  which  Wellington  to  the  end  of  his  life 
supported.  There  is  plenty  of  authority  for  the  fact  that 
the  man  who  had  once  received  his  500  lashes  for  a  fault 
which  was  small,  or  which  involved  no  moral  guilt,  was 
often  turned  thereby  from  a  good  into  a  bad  soldier,  by 
losing  his  self-respect  and  having  his  sense  of  justice  seared 
out.  Good  officers  knew  this  well  enough,  and  did  their 
best  to  avoid  the  cat-of-nine-tails,  and  to  try  more  rational 
means — more  often  than  not  with  success.* 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  Wellington  would  at 
least  show  more  regard  for  the  feelings  of  his_.officers,  how¬ 
ever  much  he  might  contemn  his  rank  and  file.  As  a  rule 
he  did  not.  He  had  some  few  intimates  whom  he  treated 
with  a  certain  familiarity,  and  it  is  clear  that  he  showed 
consideration  and  even  kindness  to  his  aides-de-camp 
and  other  personal  retainers.  But  to  the  great  majority 
of  his  officers,  even  to  many  of  his  generals  and  heads  of 

*  For  a  curious  instance  of  this  sort  in  the  92nd,  see  Hope’s 
Military  Memoirs  of  an  Infantry  Officer,  pp.  449-451.  Cf.  Sir  George 
Napier’s  Autobiography,  pp.  125-128. 


44  ’^Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 

departments,  lie  bore  himself  very  stiffly :  he  would  adminis¬ 
ter  to  them  humiliating  snubs  or  reproofs  before  others,  and 
ignore  their  remarks  or  proffered  counsel  in  the  most  marked 
way.  A  few  examples  may  serve.  Sir  Thomas  Picton 
was  one  of  his  most  distinguished  lieutenants,  and  was 
specially  summoned  by  him  to  come  over  to  Brussels  to 
take  his  part  in  the  campaign  of  1815.  The  moment  that 
he  arrived  in  the  Belgian  capital  he  sought  the  Duke,  who 
was  walking  in  the  Great  Park.  We  have  the  witness  of 
Picton’s  aide-de-camp  for  the  following  reception.  “  The 
general's  manner  was  always  more  familiar  than  the  Duke 
liked  in  his  lieutenants,  and  on  this  occasion  he  approached 
him  in  a  careless  sort  of  way,  just  as  he  might  have  greeted 
an  equal.  The  Duke  bowed  coldly  to  him,  and  said,  ‘  1 
am  glad  you  are  come,  Sir  Thomas.  The  sooner  you  get 
on  horseback  the  better  :  no  time  to  be  lost.  You  will 
take  the  command  of  the  troops  in  advance.’  That  was  all. 
Picton  appeared  not  to  like  the  Duke’s  maimer,  and  when 
he  had  bowed  and  left,  he  muttered  words  which  convinced 
those  who  were  with  him  that  he  was  not  much  pleased 
with  his  interview.”  *  Such  was  the  welcome  vouchsafed 
to  one  of  the  best  officers  in  the  army,  whom  Wellington 
had  specially  sent  for,  and  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  a  long 
space  of  time.  Another  picture  of  Wellington’s  manners 
may  be  taken  from  the  memoir  of  one  of  his  departmental 
chiefs,  Sir  James  McGrigor.  “  One  morning  I  was  in  his 
lordship’s  small  room,  when  two  officers  came  to  request 
leave  to  go  home  to  England.  An  engineer  captain  first 
made  his  request :  he  had  received  letters  informing  him  that 
his  wife  was  dangerously  ill,  and  that  the  whole  of  his  family 
were  sick.  His  lordship  quickly  replied,  ‘  No,  no,  sir.  I 
cannot  spare  you  at  this  moment.’  The  captain,  with  a 
mournful  face,  drew  back.  Then  a  general  officer,  of  noble 
family,  commanding  a  brigade,  advanced  saying,  ‘  My 
lord,  I  have  lately  been  suffering  much  from  rheumatism 

- ’.  Without  allowing  him  time  to  complete  his  sentence, 

*  Gronow’s  Recollections,  p.  G6. 


Wellington  and  his  Officers 


45 


Lord  Wellington  rapidly  said,  ‘  and  you  want  to  go  to 
England  to  be  cured.  By  all  means.  Go  there  imme¬ 
diately.’  The  general,  surprised  at  his  lordship’s  tone  and 
manner,  looked  abashed,  but  to  prevent  his  saying  anything 
more,  his  lordship  turned  and  began  to  address  me,  en¬ 
quiring  about  the  casualty-returns  of  the  preceding  night, 
and  the  nature  of  them.”  *  An  interview  with  the  com¬ 
mander-in-chief  was  such  a  trying  thing  for  the  nerves 
that  some  officers  went  away  from  it  in  a  flood  of  tears — as 
did  Charles  Stewart  after  one  famous  reproof— and  others 
suffocating  from  suppressed  maledictions. 

Wellington’s  temper  was  tried  by  having  to  deal  with 
some  inefficient  and  slack  officers — foisted  upon  him  from 
home — for  never  till  the  end  of  the  war  (as  he  bitterly  com¬ 
plained)  was  he  allowed  complete  liberty  in  choosing  his 
subordinates.  But  it  was  not  on  them  alone  that  his 
thunders  fell.  He  often  raged  at  zealous  and  capable 
subordinates,  who  had  done  no  more  than  think  for  them¬ 
selves  in  an  urgent  crisis,  when  the  orders  that  they  had 
received  seemed  no  longer  applicable.  Sir  James  McGrigori 
whom  I  have  just  quoted  above,  once  moved  some  com¬ 
missariat  stores  to  Salamanca,  w’here  there  was  a  great 
accumulation  of  sick  and  wounded.  “  When  I  came  to 
inform  him  his  lordship  started  up,  and  in  a  violent  manner 
began  to  repudiate  what  I  had  done.  ‘  I  shall  be  glad  to 
know,’  he  asked,  ‘  who  commands  this  army — I  or  you  ? 
I  establish  one  route,  one  line  of  communication — you 
establish  another  by  ordering  up  supplies  by  it.  As  long 
as  you  live,  sir,  never  do  that  again.  Never  do  anything 
without  mv  orders.’  I  pleaded  that  there  had  been  no 
time  toconsult  him,  and  that  I  had  to  save  lives.  He 
peremptorily  desired  me  ‘  never  again  to  act  without  his 
orders.’  ”  Three  months  afterwards  McGrigor  ventured  to 
say,  “  My  lord,  you  will  remember  how  much  you  blamed 
me  at  Madrid,  for  the  steps  that  I  took  when  I  could  not 
consult  your  lordship,  and  acted  for  myself.  Now,  if  I 
*  McGrigor ’s  Autobiography,  pp.  304,  305. 


46  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 


had  not,  what  would  the  consequences  have  been  ?  ”  He 
answered,  “  It  is  all  right  as  it  has  turned  out,  but  still  I 
recommend  you  to  have  my  orders  for  what  you  do.”  This 
was  a  singular  feature  in  his  lordship’s  character.’ 

Anything  that  seemed  to  Wellington  to  partake  of  the 
nature  of  thinking  for  oneself  was  an  unpardonable  sin  in 
a  subordinate.  This  is  why  he  preferred  blind  obedience 
in  his  lieutenants  to  zeal  and  energy  which  might  lead  to 
some  contravention  of  his  own  intention.  Thus  it  came 
that  he  preferred  as  lieutenants  not  only  Hill,  who  was  a 
man  of  first-class  brain-power  notwithstanding  his  docility, 
but  Spencer  and  Beresford,  who  most  certainly  were  not. 
Hence,  too,  his  commission  of  the  cavalry  arm  throughout 
the  war  to  such  a  mediocre  personage  as  Stapleton  Cotton 
(of  whom  he  used  the  most  unflattering  language).*  These 
men  could  be  trusted  to  obey  without  reasoning,  while 
Robert  Craufurd,  the  ablest  general  in  the  Peninsula,  or 
Picton,  could  not,  but  were  liable  to  think  for  themselves. 
It  may  be  noted  that  Hill,  Beresford,  Graham  and  Crau¬ 
furd,  were  the  only  officers  to  whom  Wellington  ever  con¬ 
descended  in  his  correspondence  to  give  the  why  and 
wherefore  of  a  command  that  he  issued  :  the  others  simply 
received  orders  without  any  commentary.  There  are 
instances  known  in  which  a  word  of  reasonable  explanation 
to  a  subordinate  would  have  enabled  him  to  understand  a 
situation,  and  to  comprehend  why  directions  otherwise 
incomprehensible  were  given  him.  Tiresome  results  occa¬ 
sionally  followed.  This  foible  of  refusing  information  to 
subordinates  for  no  adequate  reason  has  been  shared  by 
other  great  generals — e.g.  by  Stonewall  Jackson,  as  Colonel 
Henderson’s  biography  of  that  strange  genius  sufficiently 
shows.  It  is  a  trick  of  the  autocratic  mind. 

It  hardly  requires  to  be  pointed  out  that  this  determina  ■ 
tion  to  allow  no  liberty  of  action  to  his  lieutenants,  and  to 
keep  even  small  decisions  in  his  own  hands,  effectually  pre¬ 
vented  Wellington  from  forming  a  school  of  generals  capable 
*  When  sending  him  to  command  in  India. 


Wellington’s  Dispatches 


47 


of  carrying  out  large  independent  operations.  He  trained 
admirable  divisional  commanders,  but  not  leaders  of  armies. 
The  springs  of  self-confidence  were  drained  out  of  men  who 
had  for  long  been  subjected  to  his  regime. 

Probably  the  thing  which  irritated  Wellington’s  sub¬ 
ordinates  most  was  his  habit  of  making  his  official  mention 
of  names  in  dispatches  little  more  than  a  formal  recital 
in  order  of  the  senior  officers  present.  Where  grave 
mistakes  had  been  committed,  he  still  stuck  the  names 
of  the  misdemeanants  in  the  list,  among  those  of  the  men 
who  had  really  done  the  work.  A  complete  mystification 
as  to  their  relative  merits  would  be  produced,  if  we  had  only 
the  dispatches  to  read,  and  no  external  commentary  on 
them.  He  honourably  mentioned  Murray  in  his  Oporto 
dispatch,  Erskine  in  his  dispatch  concerning  the  actions 
during  Massena’s  retreat  in  1811,  Trip  in  his  Waterloo  dis¬ 
patch,  though  each  of  these  officers  had  done  his  best  to  spoil 
the  operations  in  which  he  was  concerned.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  would  make  the  most  unaccountable  omissions : 
his  Fuentes  de  Onoro  dispatch  makes  no  mention  of  the 
British  artillery,  which  had  done  most  brilliant  service  in 
that  battle,  not  merely  in  the  matter  of  Norman  Ramsay’s 
well-known  exploit,  which  Wellington  might  have  thought 
too  small  a  matter  to  mention,  but  in  the  decisive  checking 
of  the  main  French  attack.  There  are  extant  heart-rending 
letters  from  the  senior  officers  commanding  the  artillery, 
deploring  the  way  in  which  they  have  been  completely 
ignored :  “  to  read  the  dispatch,  there  might  have  been  no 
British  artillery  present  at  all.”  A  similar  inexplicable 
omission  of  any  record  of  zealous  service  occurs  in  Wel¬ 
lington’s  dispatch  recording  the  fall  of  Badajoz,  where  no 
special  praise  of  the  services  of  his  engineer  officers  is  made, 
though  50  per  cent,  of  them  had  been  killed  or  wounded 
during  the  siege.  “  You  may  suppose  we  all  feel  hurt  at 
finding  our  exertions  have  not  been  deemed  worthy  of  any 
sort  of  eulogium,”  writes  John  Jones,  the  historian  of  the 
sieges  of  the  Peninsula,  to  one  of  his  colleagues.  And 


48  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 


Fletcher,  the  commanding  engineer,  writes  to  a  friend  : 
“You  will  observe  that  Lord  W.  has  not  mentioned  the 
engineers  in  the  late  actions  :  how  I  hate  such  capricious¬ 
ness  !  ”  *  The  cold  phrase  in  which  their  desperate  service 
was  acknowledged  is  “  the  officers  and  men  of  the  corps 
of  engineers  and  artillery  were  equally  distinguished  during 
the  operations  of  the  siege  and  its  close.”  Fletcher  would 
gladly  have  exchanged  the  personal  honour  of  a  decoration, 
which  was  given  him  along  with  other  senior  officers,  for 
three  lines  of  warm  praise  of  the  exertions  of  his  sub¬ 
ordinates. 

Perhaps,  however,  the  most  astounding  instance  of 
Wellington’s  ungracious  omissions  is  that  his  famous 
Waterloo  dispatch  contains  no  mention  whatever  of  the 
services  of  Colborne  and  the  52nd,  the  battalion  which 
gave  the  decisive  stroke  against  the  flank  of  the  Imperial 
Guard,  during  Napoleon’s  last  desperate  assault  on  the 
British  line.  Colborne,  the  most  unselfish  and  generous 
of  men,  could  never  forget  this  slight.  He  tried  to 
excuse  it,  saying,  “  dispatches  are  written  in  haste,  and 
it  is  impossible  for  a  general  to  do  justice  to  his  army.” 
And  when  he  heard  his  officers  complaining  that  the 
British  Guards  had  been  given  all  the  credit  for  the  final 
repulse  of  the  French  column,  he  said,  “  For  shame, 
gentlemen !  One  would  think  that  you  forgot  that  the 
52nd  had  ever  been  in  battle  before.”  But  there  was 
a  bitter  comment  in  the  table  talk  of  his  later  years. 
“  The  Duke  was  occasionally  not  above  writing  in  his 
dispatches  to  please  the  aristocracy.  ...  I  don’t  mean 
to  say  that  this  was  peculiar  to  him.  It  used  to  be  a 
common  thing  with  general  officers.”  f  Enough,  however, 
of  these  illustrative  anecdotes  of  the  limitations  of  a  very 
great  soldier  and  a  very  honourable  man.  They  have 

*  These  two  letters  are  in  the  Rice- Jones  Correspondence  (this 
R.E.  officer  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  Sir  John  Jones,  the  his¬ 
torian),  lent  to  me  by  Hon.  Henry  Shore  of  Mount  Elton,  Clevedon. 

f  See  Colborne’a  Life  and  Letters,  ed.  Moore  Smith,  pp.  126,  127  ; 
235,  236. 


Lord  Roberts  on  Wellington 


49 


to  be  mentioned  in  order  to  explain  how  it  came  to  pass 
that  Wellington  was  implicitly  trusted,  and  never  loved. 
But  they  compel  me  to  acquiesce  in  the  hard  judgment 
which  Lord  Roberts  wrote  in  his  Rise  of  Wellington — “  the 
more  we  go  into  his  actions  and  his  writings  in  detail, 
the  more  do  we  respect  and  admire  him  as  a  general,  and  the 
less  do  we  like  him  as  a  man.”  I  conclude  this  paragraph 
with  two  quotations  from  two  eloquent  writers  who  served 
through  long  years  of  the  Peninsular  campaigns.  “  Thus 
terminated  the  war,  and  with  it  all  remembrances  of  the 
veteran’s  services  ”  are  the  last  words  of  William  Napier’s 
penultimate  chapter.*  Grattan  of  the  88th,  a  forgotten 
writer  now,  but  one  who  wielded  a  descriptive  pen  no  less 
vivid  than  Napier’s,  puts  the  complaint  more  bitterly. 
“  In  his  parting  General  Order  to  the  Peninsular  Army  he 
told  us  that  he  would  never  cease  to  feel  the  warmest 
interest  for  our  welfare  and  honour.  How  that  promise 
has  been  kept  every  one  knows.  That  the  Duke  of  Wel¬ 
lington  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  (perhaps  the  greatest) 
men  of  the  present  age,  few  will  deny.  But  that  he 
neglected  the  interests  and  feelings  of  his  Peninsular  army, 
as  a  body,  is  beyond  all  question.  And  were  he  in  his  grave 
to-morrow,  hundreds  of  voices  that  now  are  silent  would 
echo  what  I  write.”  f 

If  f  have  dwelt  perhaps  at  over-great  length  on  the 
limitations  of  Wellington’s  heart,  it  is  only  fair  that  full  credit 
should  be  given  to  his  wonderful  powers  of  brain.  To  com¬ 
prehend  the  actual  merit  of  his  military  career,  it  is  not 
sufficient  to  possess  a  mere  knowledge  of  the  details  of  his 
tactics  and  his  strategy.  The  conditions  under  which  he 
had  to  exercise  his  talents  were  exceptionally  trying  and 
difficult.  When  he  assumed  command  at  Lisbon  on  April 
22,  1809,  the  French  were  in  possession  of  all  Northern  and 
Central  Spain,  and  of  no  inconsiderable  part  of  Northern 
Portugal  also.  The  Spanish  armies  had  all  been  dashed  to 
pieces — there  was  no  single  one  of  them  which  had  not 
*  Napier,  vi.  p.  175.  f  Grattan,  p.  332. 

E 


50  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 


suffered  a  crushing  defeat,  and  some  of  them  (such  as 
Cuesta’s  army  of  Estremadura,  and  La  Romana’s  army  of 
Galicia)  were  at  the  moment  little  better  than  wandering 
bands  of  fugitives.  The  British  army  of  which  Wellesley 
took  command  when  he  landed  at  Lisbon,  though  it  only 
mustered  19,000  men  present,  or  21,000  including  men  in 
hospital,  was  the  only  solid  force,  in  good  order  and  intact 
in  morale,  on  which  the  allies  could  count  in  the  Iberian 
Peninsula.  The  task  set  before  Wellesley  was  to  see  if 
he  could  defend  Portugal,  and  co-operate  in  the  protection 
of  Southern  Spain,  it  being  obvious  that  the  French  were 
in  vastly  superior  numbers,  and  well  able  to  take  the 
offensive  if  they  should  chose  to  do  so.  There  were  two 
armies  threatening  Lisbon.  The  one  under  Soult  had 
already  captured  Oporto  and  overrun  two  Portuguese  pro¬ 
vinces,  shortly  before  Wellesley’s  landing.  The  other,  under 
Victor,  lay  in  Estremadura  close  to  the  Portuguese  border, 
and  had  recently  destroyed  the  largest  surviving  Spanish 
army  at  the  battle  of  Medellin  on  March  28.  Was  it 
possible  that  19,000  British  troops  could  save  the  Peninsula 
from  conquest,  or  even  that  they  could  keep  up  the  war 
in  Central  Portugal  ?  Never  was  a  more  unpromising  task 
set  to  the  commander  of  a  small  army. 

Fortunately  we  possess  three  documents  from  Wellesley’s 
own  hand,  which  show  us  the  way  in  which  he  surveyed  the 
position  that  was  before  him,  and  stated  his  views  as  to  the 
future  course  of  the  Peninsular  War.  He  recognized  that 
it  was  about  to  be  a  very  long  business,  and  that  his  task 
was  simply  to  keep  the  war  going  as  long  as  possible,  with 
the  limited  resources  at  his  disposition.  Ambitious  schemes 
for  the  expulsion  of  the  French  from  the  whole  Peninsula 
were  in  1809  perfectly  futile.  The  hypothesis  which  he 
sets  forth  in  the  first  of  the  three  documents  to  which  I 
allude,  his  Memorandum  on  the  Defence  of  Portugal,  laid 
before  Castlereagh  on  March  7,  before  he  had  taken  ship 
for  Lisbon,  is  a  marvel  of  prophetic  genius.  No  more 
prescient  document  was  ever  written.  Rejecting  the 


Wellington’s  Powers  of  Prescience  51 


decision  of  Sir  John  Moore,  who  had  declared  that  Portugal 
was  quite  indefensible,  Wellesley  states  that  a  British  army 
of  not  less  than  30,000  men,  backed  by  the  levies  of  Portugal, 
ought  to  be  able  to  maintain  itself  for  an  almost  indefinite 
period  on  the  flank  of  the  French  army  in  Spain.  Its  pre¬ 
sence  on  the  Tagus  would  paralyse  all  offensive  movements 
of  the  enemy,  and  enable  the  Spaniards  to  make  head  in 
the  unsubdued  provinces  of  their  realm,  so  long  as  Portugal 
should  remain  intact.  The  French  ought,  if  they  were 
wise,  to  turn  all  their  disposable  forces  against  the  British 
army  and  Portugal,  but  he  believed  that  even  then,  when 
the  geography  of  the  country  was  taken  into  consideration, 
they  would  fail  in  their  attempt  to  overrun  it.  They  could 
not  succeed,  as  he  held,  unless  they  were  able  to  set  aside 
100,000  men  for  the  task,  and  he  did  not  see  how  in  the 
spring  of  1809  they  could  spare  such  a  large  detachment, 
out  of  the  forces  which  they  then  possessed  in  the  Penin¬ 
sula.  If  they  tried  it  with  a  smaller  army,  he  thought 
that  he  could  undertake  to  foil  them.  He  believed  that 
he  could  cope  with  Soult  and  Victor,  the  two  enemies  who 
immediately  threatened  Portugal.* 

Further  forward  it  was  impossible  to  look.  If  a  war 
should  break  out  between  Napoleon  and  Austria,  as  seemed 
likelyat  the  moment  in  March, 1809, to  onewho  (like  himself) 
was  in  the  secrets  of  the  British  Cabinet,  the  Emperor 
would  not  be  able  to  send  reinforcements  to  Spain  for 
many  a  day.  But,  even  so,  the  position  of  the  French  in 
the  Peninsula  was  so  strong  that  it  could  only  be  en¬ 
dangered  if  a  very  large  allied  force,  acting  in  unison  under 
the  guidance  of  a  single  general,  should  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  them.  Of  the  collection  of  such  a  force,  and  still 
more  of  the  possibility  of  its  being  entrusted  to  his  own 
command,  there  was  as  yet  no  question.  Wellesley  was 
aware  of  the  jealousy  of  foreign  interference  which  the 
Spanish  Junta  nurtured  :  there  was  little  probability  that 

*  The  memorandum  is  on  pp.  261-263  of  vol.  iv.  of  Wellington’s 
Dispatches. 


52  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 

they  would  entrust  him  with  the  supreme  control  over 
their  armies.  It  was,  indeed,  only  in  1812,  when  he  had 
acquired  for  himself  a  much  greater  reputation  than  he 
owned  in  1809,  and  when  the  Spanish  Government  had 
drunk  the  cup  of  humiliation  to  the  dregs,  that  he  was 
finally  given  the  position  of  commander-in-chief  of  the 
Spanish  armies. 

This  memorandum  is  a  truly  inspired  document,  which 
shows  Wellesley  at  his  best.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
it  predicts  the  whole  course  of  the  Peninsular  War — whose 
central  point  was  to  be  invasion  of  Portugal  in  1810  by  a 
French  army  of  65,000  instead  of  the  required  100,000  men, 
and  that  army,  as  he  had  foreseen,  Wellesley  was  able  to 
check  and  foil. 

The  second  document  of  a  prophetic  sort  that  we  have 
to  notice  is  Wellesley’s  reply  to  Mr.  Canning’s  question  to 
him  as  regards  the  future  general  policy  of  the  war,  written 
on  September  5,  1809.  The  whole  aspect  of  affairs  had 
been  much  changed  since  March,  by  the  fact  that  Austria 
had  tried  her  luck  in  a  war  against  Napoleon,  and  had 
been  beaten  at  Wagram  and  forced  to  make  peace.  It 
was  therefore  certain  that  the  Emperor  would  now  have 
his  hands  free  again,  and  be  able  to  reinforce  his  armies 
in  the  Peninsula.  Wellesley  replies  that  it  is  hopeless 
to  attempt  to  defend  both  Southern  Spain  and  Portugal 
also,  even  if  the  British  army  were  raised  to  40,000  men. 
But  Portugal  can  still  be  defended. *  He  expresses  the 
strongest  objection  to  any  attempt  to  cover  Andalusia  and 
Seville,  for  to  endeavour  to  do  so  must  mean  that  Lisbon 
would  have  to  be  given  up. 

The  third  great  prophetic  despatch  is  the  Memorandum 
of  October  26,  1809,  ordering  the  construction  of  the  Lines 
of  Torres  Vedras.  Wellesley  looks  a  full  year  ahead.  He 
sees  that  Napoleon  can  now  reinforce  his  Spanish  armies, 
but  that  the  new  troops  cannot  get  up  till  the  next  spring. 
When  they  appear,  the  British  army  will  have  to  retreat 
*  Dispatches,  vol.  v.  pp.  123,  124. 


The  Lines  of  Torres  Vedras 


53 


on  Lisbon,  where  lines  of  such  strength  can  be  planned 
that  there  is  a  good  prospect  of  bringing  the  invaders 
to  a  stand.  Meanwhile  the  countryside  shall  be  cleared 
of  population  and  provisions,  so  that  the  French,  if  they 
keep  concentrated,  must  starve,  and  the  allied  army  shall 
so  conduct  its  operations  that  the  enemy  will  be  compelled 
to  remain  en  masse.  Then  follow  directions  to  Colonel 
Fletcher  (commanding  the  engineers)  to  make  his  plans 
for  an  immense  line  of  redoubts  covering  the  Lisbon  penin¬ 
sula  from  sea  to  sea.  What  was  foreseen  came  to  pass  :  the 
French  reinforcements  arrived :  the  invasion  of  Portugal 
under  Massena  took  place  in  1810.  But  the  whole  country¬ 
side  was  swept  clear  of  food,  and  when  the  marshal  reached 
the  Lines  with  his  half-starved  army,  he  was  completely 
blocked,  refused  to  attack  the  formidable  positions,  and, 
after  a  few  weeks  of  endurance  in  front  of  them,  withdrew 
with  his  famished  troops.  It  was  on  October  26,  1809, 
that  Wellington  ordered  the  Lines  to  be  laid  out.  On 
October  14,  1910,  Massena  appeared  in  front  of  them  and 
was  foiled  :  Wellington  had  made  his  preparations  exactly 
a  year  ahead  ! 

Careful  long-sighted  calculation  was  perhaps  the  Duke’s 
strongest  point.  He  had  an  immense  grasp  of  detail, 
kept  intelligence  officers  of  picked  ability  out  on  every 
front,  and  had  compiled  an  almost  exactly  correct  muster- 
roll  of  the  forces  opposed  to  him.  Seldom  had  a  general 
of  his  time  such  a  complete  knowledge  of  his  adversaries, 
and  this  he  owed  to  the  pains  that  he  took  to  obtain  it. 
His  great  scouts  Colquhoun  Grant,*  Waters,  and  Rumann 
were  always  far  out  to  the  front,  often  within  the  French 
lines,  sending  him  daily  information,  which  he  filed  and 
dissected.  In  addition  he  had  many  Spanish  and  Portu¬ 
guese  correspondents,  whose  information  would  have  been 
more  valuable  if  it  had  not  contained  too  much  hearsay, 
and  if  they  had  been  able  to  judge  numbers  with  the  trained 

*  For  an  interesting  chapter  on  the  adventures  of  Colquhoun 
Grant  see  the  autobiography  of  his  brother-in-law,  Sir  J.  McGrigor. 


54  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 


eye  of  a  soldier.  Once  he  complained  that  he  and  Marmont 
were  almost  equally  handicapped  as  regards  information 
from  the  natives — for  if  the  Frenchmen  got  none,  he  himself 
got  too  much :  the  proportion  of  it  which  was  inaccurate 
spoiled  the  value  of  the  rest.  But  Grant  or  Waters  never 
made  mistakes.  Part  of  his  system  was  the  cross-ques¬ 
tioning  of  every  deserter  and  prisoner  as  to  the  number 
and  brigading  of  his  regiment,  and  the  amount  of  battalions 
that  it  contained.  By  constant  comparison  of  these  reports 
he  got  to  know  the  exact  number  of  units  in  every  French 
corps,  and  their  average  strength. 

But  this  was  less  important  than  his  faculty  for  judging 
the  individual  characters  of  his  opponents.  After  a  few 
weeks  he  got  his  fixed  opinion  on  Massena  or  Victor,  Soult 
or  Marmont,  and  would  lay  his  plans  with  careful  reference 
to  their  particular  foibles.  I  think  that  this  is  what  he 
meant  when  he  once  observed  that  his  own  merit  was,  per¬ 
haps,  that  he  knew  more  of  “  what  was  going  on  upon 
the  other  side  of  the  hill,” — in  the  invisible  ground  occupied 
by  the  enemy  and  hidden  by  the  fog  of  war — than  most 
men. 

This  insight  into  the  enemy’s  probable  move,  when  their 
strength,  their  object,  and  the  personal  tendencies  of  their 
leader  were  known,  was  a  most  valuable  part  of  Wellesley’s 
mental  equipment.  The  best  known  instance  where  it 
came  into  play  was  on  the  day  of  Sorauren.  In  the  midst 
of  the  battles  of  the  Pyrenees,  when  the  British  army  had 
taken  up  its  fighting  position,  though  its  numbers  were  as 
yet  by  no  means  complete,  and  two  divisions  were  still 
marching  up,  Wellington  arrived  from  the  west  to  assume 
command.  He  could  see  Soult  on  the  opposite  hill  sur¬ 
rounded  by  his  staff,  and  it  was  equally  certain  that  Soult 
could  see  him,  and  knew  the  reason  of  the  cheer  which  ran 
along  the  front  of  the  allied  army  as  he  rode  up.  Wellington 
judged,  and  rightly,  that  the  news  of  his  arrival,  and  the 
sight  of  him  in  position,  would  cause  the  marshal  to  delay 
his  attack  till  the  last  of  the  French  reserves  had  come  on 


Wellington’s  Insight  into  Character  55 


the  field.  “  I  had  an  excellent  glass :  I  saw  him  spying 
at  us — then  write  and  send  off  a  letter  :  I  knew  what  he  would 
be  writing,  and  gave  my  orders  accordingly.”  *  Wellington 
judged  Soult  a  cautious  general,  knew  that  his  own  presence 
would  redouble  his  caution,  and  so  judged  that  the  order 
given  by  the  marshal  would  be  for  the  checking  of  a 
threatened  attack,  which  would  have  been  very  dangerous 
at  the  moment,  if  it  had  been  pressed.  “  The  6th  Division 
will  have  time  to  come  up,  and  we  shall  beat  him,”  is  said 
to  have  been  his  comment,  when  he  saw  Soult  hurriedly 
write  and  dispatch  an  order  to  his  front  line. 

Wellington  played  off  a  similar  piece  of  bluff  on  Mar- 
mont  at  Fuente  Guinaldo  in  September,  1811,  when  he 
drew  up  in  a  position  strong  indeed,  but  over-great  for  the 
numbers  that  he  had  in  hand,  and  seemed  to  offer  battle. 
He  was  aware  that  his  own  reputation  for  caution  was  so 
great  that,  if  the  enemy  saw  him  halt  and  take  up  his  ground, 
they  would  judge  that  he  had  concentrated  his  whole  force, 
and  would  not  attack  him  till  their  own  reserves  were  near. 
He  absconded  unmolested  in  the  night,  while  Marmont’s 
rear  columns  were  toiling  up  for  the  expected  battle  of  the 
next  day. 

For  a  long  time  in  1809-10  Wellesley  had  to  assume  a  de¬ 
fensive  attitude.  It  was  not  till  1811  that  it  at  last  became 
possible  for  him  to  think  of  taking  the  offensive,  nor  was 
it  till  1812,  the  glorious  year  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  Badajoz, 
and  Salamanca,  that  the  dream  reached  its  realization, 
Hence  came  it  that  for  a  long  time  he  was  regarded  only  as 
a  cautious  and  calculating  general,  a  master  of  defensive 
warfare.  This  conception  of  him  was  wrong  ;  as  events 
showed,  in  1812-1813,  that  he  could  be  a  very  thunderbolt 
of  war,  when  propitious  chance  gave  him  the  opportunity, 
could  strike  the  boldest  blows,  and  launch  his  army  upon 
the  enemy  with  the  most  ruthless  energy.  But,  in  the 
earlier  years  of  his  command,  he  was  always  hopelessly 
outnumbered,  and  forced  to  parry  rather  than  to  strike. 

*  Stanhope’s  Conversations  with  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  p.  19. 


56  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 


He  had  to  run  no  risks  with  his  precious  little  army,  the 
30,000  British  troops  on  whom  the  whole  defence  of  the 
Peninsula  really  depended :  because  if  it  were  destroyed  it 
could  not  be  replaced.  With  these  30,000  men  he  had 
covenanted,  in  his  agreement  with  Castlereagh,  when  first 
he  sailed  to  take  command  at  Lisbon,  that  he  would  keep 
up  the  war  indefinitely.  If  by  taking  some  great  risk  he 
had  lost  15,000  or  even  10,000  men,  the  government  would 
have  called  him  home,  and  would  have  given  up  the  struggle. 
Thus  he  had  to  fight  with  the  consciousness  that  a  single 
disaster  might  ruin  not  only  his  own  plans,  but  the  whole 
cause  of  the  allies  in  Spain.  No  wonder  that  his  actions 
seem  cautious  !  Yet  even  in  1810-1811  he  took  some 
serious  risks,  such  as  the  offering  of  battle  at  Bussaco  and 
Fuentes  de  Onoro.  When  even  a  partial  defeat  would 
mean  his  own  recall,  and  the  evacuation  of  Portugal,  it 
required  no  small  resolution  even  to  face  such  chances  as 
these.  But  his  serene  and  equable  temper  could  draw  the 
exact  line  between  legitimate  and  over-rash  enterprise, 
and  never  betrayed  him. 

All  the  more  striking,  therefore,  was  the  sudden  de¬ 
velopment  into  a  bold  offensive  policy  which  marked  the 
commencement  of  that  year  of  victories  1812.  The  chance 
had  at  last  come  :  Napoleon  was  ceasing  to  pour  rein¬ 
forcements  into  Spain — the  Russian  War  was  beginning  to 
loom  near  at  hand.  The  French  no  longer  possessed  their 
former  overwhelming  superiority  :  in  order  to  hold  in  check 
Wellington’s  army,  now  at  last  increased  by  troops  from 
home  to  40,000  British  sabres  and  bayonets,  they  had  to 
concentrate  from  every  quarter,  and  risk  their  hold  on  many 
provinces  in  order  to  collect  a  force  so  large  that  the  British 
general  could  not  dare  to  face  it.  At  last,  in  the  winter  of 
1811-1812,  Napoleon  himself  intervened  as  Wellington’s 
helper,  by  dispersing  his  armies  too  broadcast.  The  actually 
fatal  move  was  the  sending  of  15,000  of  Marmont’s  “  Army 
of  Portugal,”  the  immediate  adversary  of  the  Anglo-Portu- 
guese  host,  for  a  distant  expedition  to  the  coast  of  the 


Wellington  on  the  Offensive 


57 


Mediterranean  in  aid  of  Marshal  Suchet.  It  was  the  absence 
of  this  great  detachment,  which  could  not  return  for  many 
weeks,  that  emboldened  Wellington  to  make  his  first  great 
offensive  stroke,  the  storming  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo  on  January 
19,  1812,  after  a  siege  of  only  twelve  days. 

Following  on  this  first  success  came  the  dear-bought 
but  decisive  success  of  the  storming  of  Badajoz  on  April  7  ; 
this  was  a  costly  business,  because  Wellington  had  to  operate 
“  against  time,”  since,  if  he  lingered  over-long,  the  French 
armies  from  north  and  south  would  combine,  outnumber 
him,  and  drive  him  back  into  Portugal.  Badajoz  had  to 
be  stormed  by  sheer  force,  before  all  the  arts  of  the  engineer 
and  artillerist  had  worked  their  full  effect.  The  fire  of  the 
besieged  had  not  been  subdued,  nor  had  the  approaches  of 
the  assailants  been  pushed  close  up  to  the  walls,  as  science 
would  have  dictated.  But  by  making  three  simultaneous 
attacks  on  different  points  of  the  fortress,  and  succeeding 
at  two  of  them,  Wellington  achieved  his  object  and  solved 
his  “time  problem.”  He  showed  here,  for  the  first  time, 
that  he  could,  if  it  was  necessary,  spend  the  lives  of  his 
men  remorselessly,  in  order  to  finish  in  a  few  days  a  task 
which,  if  much  longer  delayed,  would  have  had  to  be  aban¬ 
doned.  This  was  to  his  French  enemies  a  revelation  of 
a  new  side  of  his  character.  He  had  been  esteemed  one 
who  refused  risks  and  would  not  accept  losses.  If  they  had 
known  of  the  details  of  his  old  Indian  victory  of  Assay e, 
they  would  have  judged  his  character  more  truly. 

But  Salamanca  was  the  real  revelation  of  Wellington’s 
full  ^powers.  It  was  a  lightning  stroke,  a  sudden  offensive 
movement  made  at  a  crisis  of  momentary  opportunity, 
which  would  have  ceased  if  the  hour  had  not  been 
seized  with  all  promptitude.  Wellington  hurled  his  army 
unexpectedly  at  the  enemy,  who  was  manoeuvring  in  full 
confidence  and  tranquillity  in  front  of  his  line,  thinking  that 
he  had  to  deal  with  an  adversary  who  might  accept  a  battle 
(as  at  Vimeiro,  Talavera,  or  Bussaco),  but  might  be  trusted 
not  to  force  one  od.  Salamanca  surprised  and  dismayed 


58  Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 

the  more  sagacious  of  the  French  officers.  Foy,  the  most 
intelligent  observer  among  them,  put  down  m  his  diary 
six  days  later,  “  This  battle  is  the  most  cleverly  fought, 
the  largest  in  scale,  the  most  important  in  results,  of  any 
that  the  English  have  won  in  recent  times.  It  brings  up 
Lord  Wellington's  reputation  almost  to  the  level  of  that 
of  Marlborough.  Up  to  this  day  we  knew  his  prudence,., 
his  eye  for  choosing  good  positions,  and  the  skill  with  which 
he  used  them.  But  at  Salamanca  he  has  shown  himself 
a  great  and  able  master  of  manoeuvring.  He  kept  his  dis- 
poStttons^IddeiT  neaHyTihb  rwTioIU"fiay  :  he  allowed  us  to 
develop  our  movement  before  he  pronounced  his  own  :  he 
played  a  close  game  ;  he  utilized  the  “  oblique  order  ”  in 
the  style  of  Frederick  .the  Great.  .  .  .  The  catastrophe 
of  the  Spanish  War  has  come — for  six  months  we  ought  to 
have  seen  that  it  was  quite  probable  ”  * 

This  is  one  of  the  most  striking  and  handsome  compli¬ 
ments  ever  paid  by  a  general  of  a  beaten  army  to  the  com¬ 
mander  of  the  victorious  adversaries.  If  is  perfectly  true, 
and  it  reflects  the  greatest  credit  on  Foy’s  fair-mindedness 
and  readiness  to  see  facts  as  they  were.  The  conqueror  of 
Salamanca  was  for  the  future  a  much  more  terrifying 
enemy  than  the  victor  of  Bussaco  or  Talavera  had  been. 
It  is  one  thing  to  be  repulsed — that  had  often  happened  to 
the  French  before— another  to  be  suddenly  assailed, 
scattered,  and  driven  off  the  field  with  crushing  losses  and 
in  hopeless  disorder,  as  happened  to  Wellington’s  enemies 
under  the  shadow  of  the  Arapiles  on  July  22,  1812. 

Wellington  as  a  great  master  of  the  offensive  came  into 
prominence  in  1812,  and  for  the  rest  of  the  war  it  is  this  side 
of  him  which  is  most  frequently  visible,  though  the  retreat 
from  Burgos  shows  that  his  prudence  was  as  much  alive 
as  ever.  During  the  few  days  that  preceded  that  retreat 
there  was  very  great  temptation  to  try  a  hard  stroke  at 
one  of  the  French  armies  that  were  converging  on  the  two 
halves  of  his  own  force.  Napoleon  would  undoubtedly 
*  Foy’s  diary  in  Girod  de  l’Ain,  p.  178. 


The  Campaigns  of  1813-1814 


59 


have  made  the  attempt.  But,  Wellington,  knowing  that 
his  own  total  numbers  were  much  inferior  to  those  of  the 
enemy,  and  that  to  concentrate  in  front  of  either  Soult  or 
Souham  would  be  to  take  a  terrible  risk  on  the  other  flank, 
preferred  a  concentric  retreat  towards  his  base  on  the 
frontier  of  Portugal,  to  a  battle  in  the  plains  of  Castille, 
where  he  was  far  from  home  and  support,  and  where  a 
defeat  might  lead  to  absolute  ruin. 

This  was  the  last  time  that  he  was  outnumbered  and 
forced  back  upon  his  old  methods.  In  1813,  owing  to 
Napoleon’s  drafts  from  the  army  of  Spain,  which  were  called 
off  to  replace  the  troops  lost  in  the  Moscow  campaign,  the 
allies  had  at  last  a  superiority  in  numbers,  though  that 
superiority  consisted  entirely  in  Spanish  troops  of  doubtful 
solidity.  But  even  these  were  conditions  far  more  favour¬ 
able  than  Wellington  had  ever  enjoyed  before — he  knew 
how  to  use  his  newly  joined  Spanish  divisions  in  a  useful 
fashion,  without  placing  them  in  the  more  dangerous  and 
responsible  positions.  The  campaigns  of  1813  and  1814 
are  both  essentially  offensive  in  character,  though  they 
contain  one  or  two  episodes  when  Wellington  was,  for  the 
moment,  on  the  defensive  in  his  old  style,  notably  the  early 
part  of  the  battles  of  the  Pyrenees,  where,  till  his  reserves 
came  up,  he  was  fending  off  Soult  by  the  use  of  his  more 
advanced  divisions.  But  the  moment  that  his  army  was 
assembled  he  struck  hard,  and  chased  the  enemy  over  the 
frontier,  again  in  the  series  of  operations  that  begun  on  the 
last  day  of  Sorauren.  There  was  a  very  similar  episode 
during  the  operations  that  are  generally  known  as  the  battle 
of  the  Nive,  where  Wellington  had  twice  to  stand  for  a 
movement  in  position,  while  one  of  his  wings  was  assailed 
by  Soult’s  main  body.  But  this  wTas  distinctly  what  we 
may  call  defensive  tactical  detail,  in  a  campaign  that  was 
essentially  offensive  on  the  whole.  The  main  character 
of  the  operations  of  1813-14  may  be  described  as  the 
clearing  out  of  the  enemy  from  a  series  of  positions — gene¬ 
rally  heavily  fortified — by  successful  breaking  through  of  the 


60 


Wellington — Man  and  Strategist 


lines  which  Soult  on  each  occasion  failed  to  hold.  Invariably 
the  French  army  was  nailed  down  to  the  position  which  it 
had  taken  up,  by  demonstrations  all  along  its  front,  while 
the  decisive  blow  was  given  at  selected  points  by  a  mags 
of  troops  collected  for  the  main  stroke, 


Chapter  iv 

WELLINGTON^  INFANTRY  TACTICS — LINE  VERSUS  COLUMN 

Everyone  who  takes  a  serious  interest  in  military  history 
is  aware  that,  in  a  general  way,  the  victories  of  Wellington 
over  his  French  adversaries  were  due  to  a  skilful  use  of  the 
tvri^d«epline__agaiiist  the  massive  column,  which  had  become 
the  usual  fighting-formationfor  a  French  army  acting  on 
the  offensive,  during  the  later  years  of  the  great  war  that 
raged  from  1792  till  1814.  But  I  am  not  sure  that  the 
methods  and  limitations  of  Wellington’s  system  are  fully 
appreciated,  and  they  are  well  worth  explaining.  And  on 
the  other  hand  it  would  not  be  true  to  imagine  that  all 
French  fighting,  without  exception, was  conducted  in  column, 
or  that  blows  delivered  by  the  solid  masses  whose  aspect 
the  English  knew  so  well,  were  the  only  ideal  of  the  Napo¬ 
leonic  generals.  It  is  not  sufficient  to  lay  down  the  general 
thesis  that  Wellington  found  himself  opposed  by  troops 
who  invariably  worked  in  column,  and  that  he  beat  those 
troops  by  the  simple  expedient  of  meeting  them,  front  to 
front,  with  other  troops  who  as  invariably  fought  in  the 
two-deep  battle  line.  The  statement  is  true  in  a  general 
way,  but  needs  explanation  and  modification. 

The  use  of  infantry  in  line  was,  of  course,  no  invention 
of  Wellington’s,  nor  is  it  a  universal  panacea  for  all  crises 
of  war.  During  the  eighteenth  century,  from  Marlborough 
to  Frederic  the  Great,  all  European  infantry  was  normally 
fighting  in  line,  three  or  four  deep,  and  looking  for  success 
in  battle  to  the  rapidity  and  accuracy  of  its  fire,  not  to  the 
impetus  of  advances  in  heavy  masses  such  as  had  been 


62 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


practised  by  the  pikemen  of  the  sixteenth  or  seventeenth 
century,  and  were  to  be  introduced  again  by  the  French 
generals  of  the  Revolutionary  period.  Everyone  knows 
how  the  victories  of  Frederic  the  Great  were  in  part  to  be 
attributed  to  the  careful  fire-drill  of  his  infantry,  who,  with 
their  iron  ramrods  and  rapid  manual  exercise,  used  to  put 
in  a  far  larger  and  more  effective  discharge  of  musket-balls 
per  minute  than  their  adversaries.  But  both  parties  were 
as  a  rule  fighting  in  three-deep  line,  Austrians  no  less  than 
Prussians.  Armies  had  a  stereotyped  array,  with  infantry 
battalions  deployed  in  long  lines  in  the  centre,  and  heavy 
masses  of  cavalry  covering  the  wings.  A  glance  at  the 
battle-plans  of  the  War  of  the  Austrian  Succession,  or  of 
the  Seven  Years’  War,  shows  a  marvellous  similarity  in  the 
general  tactical  arrangements  of  the  rival  hosts,  and  front- 
to-front  collisions  of  long  parallel  lines  were  quite  common, 
though  commanders  of  genius  had  their  own  ways  of  varying 
the  tactics  of  the  day.  Frederic  the  Great’s  famous 
“oblique  order,”  or  advance  in  echelon,  with  the  strong 
striking-wing  brought  forward,  and  the  weaker  “  containing- 
wing  ”  held  back  and  refused,  is  sufficiently  well  known. 
Occasionally  he  was  able  to  vary  it,  as  at  Rossbach  and 
Leuthen,  and  to  throw  the  greater  part  of  his  troops  across 
the  enemy’s  flank  at  right  angles,  so  as  to  roll  him  up  in 
detail.  But  these  were  “  uncovenanted  mercies  ”  obtained 
owing  to  the  abnormal  sloth  or  unskilfulness  of  the  opposing 
general.  Torgau  needs  a  special  word  of  mention,  as 
Frederic’s  only  battle  fought  of  choice  in  a  thoroughly 
irregular  formation. 

There  were  one  or  two  cases  in  the  old  eighteenth- 
century  wars  of  engagements  won  by  the  piercing  of  a 
hostile  centre,  such  as  Marshal  Saxe’s  victory  of  Roucoux 
(1746),  and  we  may  find,  in  other  operations  of  that  great 
general,  instances  of  the  use  of  deep  masses,  battalion  de¬ 
ployed  behind  battalion,  for  the  attack  of  a  chosen  section 
of  the  hostile  position,  and  others  where  a  line  of  deployed 
infantry  was  flanked  or  supported  by  units  practically  in 


Frederic  II.  and  Marshal  Saxe  63 


column.  But  this  was  exceptional — as  exceptional  as  the 
somewhat  similar  formation  of  Cumberland’s  mass  of  British 
and  Hanoverian  infantry  at  Fontenoy,  which,  though  often 
described  as  a  column,  had  originally  consisted  of  three 
successive  lines  of  deployed  battalions,  which  were  ultimately 
constricted  into  a  mass  by  lateral  pressure.  Some  of  Mar¬ 
shal  Broglie’s  and  Ferdinand  of  Brunswick’s  fights  during 
the  Seven  Years’  War  were  also  fought  in  a  looser  order  of 
battle  than  was  normal. 

Normally  the  tactics  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
directed  to  the  smashing  up  of  one  of  the  cnenry’s^aings, 
either  by  outflanking  it,  or  by  assailing  it  with  very  superior 
forces,  while  the  rest  of  the  enemy’s  army  was  “  contained  ” 
by  equal  or  inferior  numbers,  according  as  the  assailant 
had  more  or  less  troops  than  his  enemy.  The  decisive  blow 
was  very  frequently  delivered  by  a  superior  force  of  cavalry 
concentrated  upon  the  striking  wing,  which  commenced 
the  action  by  breaking  down  the  inferior  hostile  cavalry, 
and  then  turned  in  upon  the  flank  of  the  infantry  of  the 
wing  which  it  had  assailed.  Such  a  type  of  battle  may 
sometimes  be  found  much  later,  even  in  the  Peninsular  War, 
where  Ocana  was  a  perfect  example  of  it. 

Speaking  roughly,  however,  the  period  of  set  battles 
fought  by  enemies  advancing  against  each  other  in  more 
or  less  parallel  lines  ended  with  the  outbreak  of  the  war  of 
the  French  Revolution.  There  had  been  a  fierce  controversy 
in  France  from  1775  to  1791  between  the  advocates  of  the 
linear,  or  Frederician,  battle-order — headed  by  General 
Guibert,  and  the  officers  wrho  wished  to  introduce  a  deeper 
formation,  which  they  claimed  to  have  learnt  from  the 
instructions  of  Marshal  Saxe — of  whom  the  chief  was  General 
Menil-Durand.  The  former  school  had  triumphed  just  before 
the  wrar  began,  and  the  Reglement  d’ Infanterie  of  1791 
accepted  all  their  views.  It  was  on  this  drill-book  that  the 
French  infantry  stood  to  fight  in  the  following  year,  when 
the  war  on  the  Rhine  and  in  Belgium  began.* 

*  For  an  analysis  of  the  controversy,  see  Dumolin’s  preface  to  his- 


64 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


But  the  attempt  of  the  first  generals  of  Revolutionary 
France  to  fight  on  the  old  linear  system  was  a  failure. 
The  troops  of  the  Republic  had  been  demoralized  by  the 
removal  or  desertion  of  the  greater  proportion  of  their 
commissioned  officers,  and  their  cadres  had  been  hastily 
filled  with  half -trained  recruits.  At  the  same  time  hundreds 
of  new  units,  the  battalions  of  volunteers,  had  been  formed 
on  no  old  cadre  at  all,  but,  with  officers  and  men  alike  little 
better  than  untrained  civilians,  took  the  field  along  with 
the  reorganized  remains  of  the  old  royal  army.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  remark,  that  these  raw  armies  suffered  a  series 
of  disgraceful  defeats  at  the  hands  of  the  Austrian  and 
other  allied  troops  in  1792-93.  They  were  beaten  both  in 
tactics,  in  manoeuvring,  and  in  fire-discipline  by  the  well- 
drilled  veteran  battalions  to  which  they  were  opposed. 

The  French  Republic,  when  it  came  under  the  control 
of  the  Jacobins,  tried  to  set  matters  right  by  accusing  its 
generals  of  treason,  and  arrested  and  guillotined  a  consider¬ 
able  proportion  of  the  unfortunate  commanders-in-chief  to 
whom  its  armies  had  been  entrusted.  But  neither  this 
heroic  device,  nor  the  sending  to  the  armies  of  the  well 
known  “  representatives  en  mission  ”  from  the  National 
Assembly,  who  were  to  stimulate  the  energy  of  the  generals, 
had  satisfactory  results.  As  the  representatives  were 
generally  as  ignorant  of  military  affairs  as  they  were  self- 
important  and  autocratic,  they  did  no  more  than  confuse 
and  harass  the  unhappy  generals  on  whom  they  were 
inflicted. 

One  thing,  however,  the  Jacobin  government  did  accom¬ 
plish  :  it  pushed  into  the  field  reinforcements  in  such 
myriads  that  the  armies  of  the  allies  were  hopelessly  out¬ 
numbered  on  every  frontier.  The  first  successes  of  the 
Republican  armies  in  the  North  were  won  by  brute  force, 
by  heaping  double  and  triple  numbers  upon  the  enemy. 
And  the  new  tactics  of  the  Revolutionary  leaders  were 

Pricis  des  Guerres  de  la  Bivolution,  and  compare  Colin’s  Education 
Militaire  de  Napoleon. 


Tactics  of  the  French  Revolution  65 


evolved  from  a  consciousness  of  superiority  in  this  respect, 
a  determination  to  swamp  troops  that  manoeuvred  better 
than  their  own,  by  hurling  preponderant  masses  upon  them, 
regardless  of  the  losses  that  must  necessarily  be  suffered. 
For  they  had  inexhaustible  reserves  behind  them,  from  the 
newly-decreed  levies  en  masse,  while  the  bases  of  the  allies 
were  far  off,  and  their  trained  men,  when  destroyed,  could 
only  be  replaced  slowly  and  with  difficulty. 

When  the  generals  of  the  Revolution  threw  away  the  old 
linear  tactics  learned  in  the  school  of  Frederic  the  Great, 
as  inapplicable  to  troops  that  could  not  manoeuvre  with 
the  same  speed  and  accuracy  as  their  enemies,  the  impro¬ 
vised  system  that  succeeded  was  a  brutal  and  wasteful 
one,  but  had  the  merit  of  allowing  them  to  utilize  their 
superiority  of  numbers.  It  is  possible  that  those  of  them 
who  reasoned  at  all  upon  the  topic — and  reasoning  was  not 
easy  in  that  strenuous  time,  when  a  commander’s  head  sat 
lightly  on  his  shoulders — saw  that  they  were  in  a  manner 
utilizing  the  idea  that  had  been  tried  in  a  tentative  way 
by  Maurice  de  Saxe,  and  by  one  or  two  other  generals  of 
the  old  wars — the  idea  that  for  collision  in  long  line  on  a 
parallel  front,  partial  attacks  in  heavy  masses  on  designated 
points  might  be  substituted.  But  it  is  probable  that  there 
was  more  of  improvisation  than  of  deliberate  tactical  theory 
in  the  manoeuvres  of  even  the  best  of  them. 

The  usual  method  was  to  throw  at  the  hostile  front  a 
very  thick  skirmishing  line,  which  sheathed  and  concealed 
a  mass  of  heavy  columns,  concentrated  upon  one  or  two 
critical  points  of  the  field.  The  idea  was  that  the  front  line 
of  tirailleurs  would  so  engage  the  enemy,  and  keep  him 
occupied  all  along  his  front,  that  at  the  crucial  section  of 
the  combat  the  supporting  columns  would  get  up  to  striking 
distance  with  practically  no  loss,  and  could  be  hurled, 
while  still  intact,  upon  those  points  of  the  hostile  array  w'hich 
it  was  intended  to  pierce  ;  they  would  go  through  by  their 
mere  impetus  and  weight,  since  they  were  only  exposed  to 
fire  for  a  few  minutes,  and  could  endure  the  loss  suffered 

F 


66 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


in  that  time  without  losing  their  elan  or  their  pace.  The 
essential  part  of  the  system  was  the  enormously  thick  and 
powerful  skirmishing  line  :  whole  battalions  were  dispersed 
in  chains  of  tirailleurs,  who  frankly  abandoned  any  attempt 
at  ordered  movement,  took  refuge  behind  cover  of  all 
sorts,  and  were  so  numerous  that  they  could  always  drive 
in  the  weak  skirmishing  line  of  the  enemy,  and  get  closely 
engaged  with  his  whole  front.  The  orderly  battalion- 
volleys  of  the  Austrian,  or  other  allied  troops  opposed  to 
them,  did  comparatively  little  harm  to  these  swarms,  who 
were  taking  cover  as  much  as  possible,  and  presented  no 
closed  body  or  solid  mark  for  the  musketry  fire  poured 
upon  them.  It  looks  as  if  the  proper  antidote  against 
such  a  swarm-attack  wTould  have  been  local  and  partial 
cavalry  charges,  by  squadrons  judiciously  inserted  in  the 
hostile  line,  for  nothing  could  have  been  more  vulnerable 
to  a  sudden  cavalry  onslaught  than  a  disorderly  chain  of 
light  troops.  On  many  occasions  in  the  campaigns  of 
1792-93  the  French  infantry  had  shown  itself  very  helpless 
against  horsemen  who  pushed  their  charge  home,  not  only 
in  cases  where  it  was  caught  unprepared,  but  even  when 
it  had  succeeded  in  forming  square  with  more  or  less  prompti¬ 
tude.*  But  this  particular  remedy  against  the  swarm- 
attack  does  not  seem  to  have  been  duly  employed,  and 
indeed  many  parts  of  Flanders  are  so  cut  up  by  small 
enclosures,  that  the  use  of  cavalry  as  a  universal  panacea 
might  often  have  proved  impossible. 

The  masses  which  supported  the  thick  lines  of  tirailleurs 
were  formed  either  in  columns  of  companies  or  columns  of 
“  divisions,”  i.e.  double  companies.!  In  the  former  case 
the  eight  companies,  each  three  deep,  were  drawn  up  behind 
each  other.  In  the  latter  the  front  was  formed  by  a 
“  division,”  and  the  depth  was  only  twelve  men.  In  either 

*  See  especially  the  record  of  the  great  English  and  Austrian 
charges  against  French  infantry  at  Villers-en-Cauchies,  Beaumont, 
and  Willems  (Fortescue’s  British  Army,  lv.  240-56). 

t  The  French  battalion  then  comprising  nine  companies,  of 
which  one,  the  Voltigeur  company,  would  not  be  in  the  column. 


Tactics  of  the  French  Column 


67 


case  none  but  the  two  front  ranks  could  use  their  firearms 
properly,  and  the  rest  were  useless  save  for  the  impetus 
that  they  gave  the  rolling  mass.  But  such  a  column,  when 
properly  sheathed  by  the  skirmishing  line  till  the  last 
moment,  generally  came  with  a  very  effective  rush  against 
the  allied  line  opposed  to  it,  which  would  have  been  already 
engaged  with  the  tirailleurs  for  some  time,  and  had  pro¬ 
bably  been  much  depleted  by  their  fire.  It  is  equally 
clear  that,  without  its  protective  sheath  of  skirmishers, 
such  a  heavy  column  would  have  been  a  very  clumsy 
instrument  of  war,  since  it  combined  the  minimum  of 
shooting  power  with  the  maximum  of  vulnerability.  But 
when  so  shielded,  the  columns  which  attacked  in  masses  at 
a  decisive  spot,  leaving  the  rest  of  the  hostile  line  “  con¬ 
tained  ”  by  an  adequate  force,  had  a  fair  chance  of  pene¬ 
trating,  though  the  process  of  penetration  might  during  the 
last  two  or  three  minutes  be  very  costly  to  the  troops 
forming  the  head  of  the  column. 

The  best  early  summary  of  this  change  in  French  tactics 
which  I  know  occurs  in  an  anonymous  English  pamphlet 
published  in  1802,  which  puts  the  matter  in  a  nutshell. 
“  The  French  army  vras  composed  of  troops  of  the  line 
without  order,  and  of  raw  and  undisciplined  volunteers. 
They  experienced  defeats  in  the  beginning,  but  in  the 
meantime  war  was  forming  both  officers  and  soldiers.  In  an 
open  country  they  took  to  forming  their  armies  in  columns 
instead  of  lines,  which  they  could  not  preserve  without 
difficulty.  They  reduced  battles  to  attacks  on  certain 
points,  where  brigade  succeeded  brigade,  and  fresh  troops 
supplied  the  places  of  those  who  were  driven  back,  till  they 
were  enabled  to  force  the  post,  and  make  the  enemy  give 
way.  They  urere  fully  aware  that  they  could  not  give 
battle  in  regular  order,  and  sought  to  reduce  engagements 
to  important  affairs  of  posts  :  this  plan  has  succeeded. 
They  look  upon  losses  as  nothing,  provided  they  attain 
their  end  ;  they  set  little  store  by  their  men,  because  they 
have  the  certainty  of  being  able  to  replace  them,  and  the 


68 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


customary  superiority  of  their  numbers  affords  them  an 
advantage  which  can  only  be  counterbalanced  by  great 
skill,  conduct,  and  activity.”  * 

After  1794,  when  the  Republican  armies  had  won  their 
first  series  of  great  successes,  and  had  driven  their  enemies 
behind  their  own  frontiers,  there  is  a  distinct  change  in 
the  tactical  conceptions  of  the  French.  The  troops  had  im¬ 
proved  immensely  in  morale  and  self-confidence  :  a  new  race 
of  generals  had  appeared,  who  were  neither  obsessed  by 
reminiscences  of  the  system  of  Frederic  the  Great,  like  some 
of  their  predecessors,  nor  spurred  to  blind  violence  and  the 
brutal  expenditure  of  vast  numbers  of  men  like  certain  others. 
The  new  generals  modified  the  gross  and  unscientific  methods 
of  the  Jacobin  armies  of  1793-94,  which  had  won  victory 
indeed,  but  only  by  the  force  of  numbers  and  with  reckless 
loss  of  life.  There  remained  as  a  permanent  lesson,  how¬ 
ever,  from  the  earlier  campaigns  two  principles — the 
avoidance  of  dispersion  and  extension,  by  which  armies 
“  cover  everything  and  protect  nothing,”  and  the  necessity 
of  striking  at  crucial  points  rather  than  delivering  “  linear  ” 
battles,  fought  out  at  equal  intensity  along  the  whole  front. 
In  general  French  tactics  became  very  supple,  the  units 
manoeuvring  with  a  freedom  which  had  been  unknown  to 
earlier  generations.  The  system  of  parting  an  army  into 
divisions,  now  introduced  as  a  regular  organization,!  gave 
to  the  whole  army  a  power  of  independent  movement 
unknown  in  the  days  when  a  line  of  battle  was  considered 
a  rigid  thing,  formed  of  brigades  ranged  elbow  to  elbow, 
none  of  which  ought  to  move  without  the  direct  orders  of 
the  general-in-chief.  A  front  might  be  composed  of  separate 
divisions  coming  on  the  field  by  different  roads,  and  each 
adopting  its  own  formation,  the  only  necessity  being  that 

*  From  an  essay  entitled  Character  of  the  Armies  of  the  various 
European  Powers,  in  a  collection  called  Essays  on  the  Theory  and 
Practice  of  the  Art  of  War.  3  vols.  London:  Philips  &  Co. 

f  Though  Marshal  Broglie  had  used  something  like  an  approach 
to  permanent  divisions  in  the  Seven  Years’  War :  see  Colin’s  Trans¬ 
formations  de  la  Guerre,  p.  97. 


Disadvantages  op  the  Column 


69 


there  should  be  no  great  gaps  left  between  them.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  this  last  necessary  precaution  was  by  no 
means  always  observed,  and  there  are  cases  in  the  middle, 
and  even  the  later,  years  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  in  which 
French  generals  brought  their  armies  upon  the  field  in  such 
disconnected  bodies,  and  with  such  want  of  co-operation 
and  good  timing,  that  they  wrere  deservedly  defeated  in 
detail.*  Bonaparte  himself  is  liable  to  this  charge  for  his 
order  of  attack  at  Marengo,  w'here  he  committed  himself 
to  a  general  action  before  the  column  of  Desaix  w'as  near 
enough  to  the  field,  and  as  nearly  as  possible  suffered  a 
crushing  reverse  for  the  want  of  a  mass  of  troops  whose 
action  was  absolutely  necessary  to  him.  Hoche,  Jourdan, 
and  Moreau  (the  last  especially),  all  committed  similar 
mistakes  from  time  to  time.  But  these  errors  were  at  least 
better  than  an  adhesion  to  the  stereotyped  tactics  of  the 
older  generation,  where  formal  set  orders  of  battle  had 
been  thought  absolutely  necessary. 

As  a  rule  we  find  the  French  operating  in  the  later  years 
of  the  Republic  with  methods  very  different  from  those  of 
1793,  with  skill  and  swiftness,  no  longer  with  the  mere  brute 
force  of  numerical  superiority,  winning  by  brilliant 
manoeuvring  rather  than  by  mere  bludgeon  work.  Yet, 
oddly  enough,  there  was  no  formal  revision  of  official 
tactics  ;  the  Reglement  d’ Infanterie  which  had  been  drawn 
up  in  1791,  whose  base  was  the  old  three-deep  line  of 
Frederic  the  Great,  had  never  been  disowned,  even  when 
it  was  for  the  most  part  disregarded,  in  the  period  when 
swarm-attacks  of  tirailleurs,  supported  by  monstrous  heavy 
columns,  had  become,  perforce,  the  practical  method  of  the 
French  armies.  When  that  unsatisfactory  time  passed  by, 
the  same  old  drill-book  continued  to  be  used,  and  was  no 
longer  so  remote  from  actual  practice  as  it  had  been.  For 

*  Colin  quotes  as  bad  examples  of  French  armies  coming  on  the 
field  dispersedly,  ■without  the  proper  timing  and  co-operation, 
Wattignies,  Neresheim  (1790),  and  all  Moreau’s  operations  beyond 
the  Rhino  in  that  year  from  liastadt  to  Ettlingcn  ( Transformations 
dc  la  Guerre,  p.  99). 


70 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


the  use  of  the  deployed  battalion  began  to  come  up  again, 
as  the  handiness  of  the  troops  increased,  and  their  self- 
reliance  was  restored.  Only  the  early  Revolutionary  War 
had  left  two  marks  upon  French  tactics — for  hard  and 
heavy  work,  such  as  the  forcing  of  passes,  or  bridges,  or 
defiles,  or  the  breaking  of  a  crucial  point  in  the  enemy’s  line, 
the  deep  column  remained  habitually  employed  :  while  the 
old  idea  of  the  orderly  continuous  line  of  battle  was  gone 
for  ever,  or  almost  gone,  for  (oddly  enough)  in  Napoleon’s 
last  and  least  lucky  fight,  Waterloo,  the  order  of  the 
imperial  host  was  more  like  the  trim  and  symmetrical  array 
of  a  Frederician  army  than  any  French  line  of  battle  that 
had  been  seen  for  many  a  year.  Certainly  it  would  have 
pleased  the  eye  of  the  Prussian  king  much  better  than  the 
apparently  irregular,  though  carefully  thought  out,  plans 
of  battle  on  which  Jena  or  Wagram,  Borodino  or  Bautzen 
were  won. 

It  would  be  doing  injustice  to  Napoleon  to  represent 
him  as  a  general  whose  main  tactical  method  rested  solely 
on  the  employment  of  massive  columns  for  the  critical 
operation  on  each  battlefield.  He  was  quite  aware  that 
infantry  ought  to  operate  by  its  fire,  and  that  every  man 
in  the  rear  ranks  is  a  musket  wasted.  If  the  Emperor  had 
any  favourite  formation  it  was  the pxd.r£:mizt e ,  recommended 
by  Guibert  far  back  before  his  own  day,  in  which  a  certain 
combination  of  the  advantages  of  line  and  column  was 
obtained,  by  drawing  up  the  brigade  or  regiment  with 
alternate  battalions  in  line  three-deep  and  in  column.  This 
formation  gave  a  fair  amount  of  frontal  fire  from  the 
alternate  deployed  battalions,  while  the  columns  dispersed 
among  them  gave  solidity,  and  immunity  from  a  flank 
attack  by  cavalry,  which  might  otherwise  roll  up  the  line. 
If,  for  example,  a  regiment  of  three  battalions  of  900  men 
each  were  drawn  up  in  the  ordre  mixte,  with  one  deployed 
battalion  flanked  by  two  battalions  in  column,  it  had 
about  730  men  in  the  firing  line,  while  if  arranged  in  three 
columns,  it  would  only  have  had  about  200  able  to  use  their 


The  “  Ordre  Mixte  ” 


71 


muskets  freely.  Still,  at  the  best,  this  formation  was 
heavy,  since  all  the  serried  back-ranks  of  the  flanking 
battalions  had  no  power  to  join  in  the  fusillade.  For 
simple  fire-effect  it  was  as  inferior  to  the  line  as  it  was 
superior  to  the  mere  column. 

Napoleon,  however,  was  certainly  fond  of  it.  From 
the  crossing  of  the  Tagliamento  (1797),  when  he  is  first 
recorded  to  have  used  it,  he  made  very  frequent  employ¬ 
ment  of  it.  In  a  dispatch  to  Soult,  sent  him  just  before 
Austerlitz,  he  directed  him  to  use  it  “  autant  que  faire 
se  pourra .”  It  is  curious,  however,  to  note  that  the 
marshal,  less  than  a  week  after,  having  to  strike  the 
decisive  blow  in  that  battle,  did  not,  after  all,  use  the  ordre 
mixte,  but  fought  in  lines  of  battalions  in  “  columns  of 
divisions,”  as  he  particularly  mentions  in  his  report  to 
the  Emperor.  * 

But  the  ordre  mixte  was  certainly  employed  again  and 
again,  not  only  in  those  parts  of  the  battle  where  Napoleon 
was  simply  “  containing  ”  his  enemy,  and  where  he  was 
merely  keeping  up  the  fight  and  pinning  the  adversary  to 
his  position,  but  also  on  the  crucial  points,  where  he  was 
endeavouring  to  dead  his  main  blow.  We  have  notes  to 
the  effect  that  Lannes’  Corps  at  Jena,  Augereau’s  at  Eylau, 
and  Victor’s  at  Friedland,  which  were  all  “  striking  forces,” 
not  “  containing  forces,”  used  this  formation.  Its  supposed 
solidity  did  not  always  save  it  from  disaster,  as  was  seen 
in  the  second  of  the  cases  quoted  above,  where  Augereau’s 
whole  corps,  despite  of  its  battalions  in  column,  was  ridden 
down  by  a  flank  attack  of  Russian  cavalry,  charging  covered 
by  a  snowstorm. 

In  spite,  however,  of  Napoleon’s  theoretical  preference 
for  the  ordre  mixte,  and  his  knowledge  that  the  column  was 
a  costly  formation  to  employ  against  an  enemy  whose  fire 
was  not  subdued,  it  is  certain  that  he  used  it  frequently, 
not  only  for  the  forcing  of  bridges  or  defiles  (as  at  Areola 

*  See  Dumolin’s  Pn’cis  d'Histoire  Militaire,  x.  p.  2C3,  and 
Colin’s  Tactique  et  Discipline,  p.  Ixxxv. 


72 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


and  Ebersberg  *),  but  for  giving  the  final  blow  at  a  point 
where  he  was  determined  to  break  through,  and  where  the 
enemy  was  holding  on  with  tiresome  persistence.  At 
Wagram  the  flank-guards  of  Macdonald’s  conquering 
advance  were  formed  by  13  battalions  in  solid  column,  one 
behind  the  other,  though  its  front  consisted  of  eight  deployed 
battalions.  Friant’s  division  on  the  right  wing  also 
attacked  with  three  regiments  formed  “  en  colonne  -serree  par 
baiaillons.”  At  Friedland,  Ney’s  right  division  (Marchand) 
came  to  the  front  in  a  single  file  of  ten  battalions  one  behind 
the  other,  and  never  got  deployed,  but  attacked  in  mass 
and  was  checked.  In  1812  and  1813  advance  in  heavy 
masses  was  usual — whole  regiments  formed  in  “  column  of 
divisions,”  battalion  behind  battalion, f  with  only  200  yards’ 
distance  between  regiment  and  regiment. 

Napoleon  was  quite  aware  of  the  disadvantages  of  such 
formations,  “  meme  en  plaine,”  he  observed  in  a  celebrated 
interview  with  Foy,  “  les  colonnes  n’enfoncent  les  lignes 
qu’autant  qu’elles  sont  appuyees  par  le  feu  d’une  artillerie 
tr6s  superieure,  qui  prepare  l’attaque.”  J  And  his  advances 
in  column  were  habitually  prepared  by  a  crushing  artillery 
fire  on  the  point  which  he  was  about  to  assail,  a  fire  which 
he  himself,  as  an  old  artillery  officer,  knew  how  to  direct 
with  the  greatest  accuracy  and  efficiency.  It  seems  that 
he  relied  much  more  on  such  preparation  by  concentrated 
batteries  for  the  shielding  of  his  columns,  than  on  sheathing 
them  by  a  thick  skirmishing  line,  the  old  device  of  the 
generals  of  the  Republic.  An  enemy’s  firing  line  might  be 
occupied  and  demoralized  by  shot  and  shell,  as  well  as  by 
a  screen  of  skirmishers.  Jena,  indeed,  seems  to  be  about 
the  only  one  of  his  battles  in  which  a  hostile  fine  was 

*  At  Areola  Augereau’s  division  attacked  the  bridge  over  a 
raised  road  passing  over  a  dyke  only  30  feet  broad,  with  marshes  on 
each  side.  There  were  three  regiments,  one  behind  the  other. 
Cohorn’s  column  at  Ebersburg  was  not  so  deep,  only  a  brigade. 
But  it  had  to  defile  over  a  bridge  200  yards  long. 

j  E.g.  :  this  was  the  formation  of  the  3rd  corps  at  Liitzen,  see 
Fabry,  Journal  des  3me  at  5™  Corps  en  1813,  p.  7. 

J  Foy’s  Vie  Militairc,  ed.  Girod  do  l’Ain,  p.  107. 


Tactics  of  Napoleon’s  GenePvAls 


73 


masked  and  depleted  by  a  heavy  tirailleur  attack,  before 
the  columns  in  support  charged  and  routed  it.  Often 
the  light  infantry  seems  to  have  been  practically  non¬ 
existent,  and  it  was  artillery  and  formed  battalions  alone 
which  fought  out  the  engagement.  French  generals  in  the 
imperial  campaigns  appear  habitually  to  have  used  for  the 
skirmishing  line  no  more  than  the  Volligeur  company  of 
each  battalion,*  a  force  making  one-ninth  of  the  whole  unit 
only,  till  the  number  of  companies  was  cut  down  in  1808 
from  nine  to  six,  when  the  Voltigeurs  became  one-sixth  of 
the  total.  We  are  very  far,  by  1805  or  1809,  from  the  day 
of  the  great  “  swarm-attacks  ”  of  the  early  Republic. 

It  was  the  tactics  of  the  Empire,  not  those  of  the  Republic, 
which  Wellington  had  to  face,  when  he  took  command  of 
the  allied  army  in  the  Peninsula  in  1809.  He  had  to  take 
into  consideration  an  enemy  whose  methods  were  essentially 
offensive,  whose  order  of  infantry  fighting  was  at  the  best — 
in  the  ordre  mixte — rather  heavy,  and  in  many  cases, 
when  the  column  of  the  battalion  or  the  regiment  was  used, 
exceptionally  gross  and  crowded.  He  knew  that  the  enemy 
would  have  a  far  more  numerous  cavalry  than  was  at  his 
own  disposition,  and  that  it  would  be  used  with  reckless 
boldness — the  cavalry  stroke  in  the  Napoleonic  battle 
accompanied,  if  it  did  not  precede,  the  infantry  stroke. 
Moreover,  the  French  army  would  have  a  very  powerful 
and  effective  artillery,  trained  to  prepare  the  way  for 
infantry  attacks  by  the  greatest  artillerist  in  the  world. 
His  own  proportion  of  guns  to  infantry  was  ridiculously 
low  :  there  was  not  even  one  battery  per  division  in  1809. 

What  was  there  to  oppose  to  this  dangerous  enemy  in 
the  way  of  tactical  efficiency  ?  Roughly  speaking  we  may 
say  that  the  one  point  of  superiority  on  which  Wellesley 
counted,  and  counted  rightly,  was  the  superiority  of  the 
English  formation  for  infantry  in  the  two-deep  line- to 
the  heavier  order  of  the  enemy’s  battalions.  For  this 

*  Habitually  but  not  invariably  :  e.g.  for  auso  of  eight  skirmishing 
companies  from  five  battalions  at  Villamuriel  in  Oct.  12,  by  Maucuno, 
see  B6chaud’s  Journal,  pp.  40C-7,  in  Etudes  Napottoniemes  I. 


74  Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 

formation  he  was,  of  course,  not  responsible  himself  :  he 
took  it  over  as  an  accepted  thing,  and  thought  that  he 
knew  how  to  turn  it  to  the  best  account. 

The  effects  of  the  French  War  on  British  tactics  had 
been  notable  and  interesting.  The  first  reflections  pub¬ 
lished  on  the  new  type  of  war  on  this  side  of  the  Channel 
seem  to  have  been  mainly  inspired  by  the  experience  of 
the  Duke  of  York’s  army  in  1793-94,  when  the  thick 
chains  of  tirailleurs,  which  formed  the  protective  screen,  or 
first  line,  of  the  Republican  armies,  had  done  so  much 
damage  to  troops  which  fought  them  in  the  old  three-deep 
order,  adopted  from  Frederic  the  Great,  without  any 
sufficient  counter-provision  of  skirmishers.  We  find  early 
in  the  war  complaints  that  the  British  forces  had  no  adequate 
proportion  of  light  troops — that  the  one  light  company  per 
battalion,  normally  used,  was  wholly  unable  to  prevent  the 
French  tirailleur  swarm  from  pressing  up  to  the  main  line, 
and  doing  it  much  harm  before  the  real  attack  was  delivered. 
Two  remedies  were  proposed — the  first  was  that  the  pro¬ 
portion  of  light  companies  in  a  battalion  should  be  increased 
from  one  to  two,*  or  that  in  each  regiment  a  certain  number 
of  men  should  be  selected  for  good  marksmanship,  and 
taught  light  infantry  drill,  while  still  remaining  attached 
to  their  companies.  Of  these  proposals  the  first  was  never 
tried  :  the  second  was  actually  practised  by  certain  colonels, 
who  trained  fifteen  or  twenty  men  per  company  as 
skirmishers  :  they  were  called  “  flankers,”  and  were  to  go 
out  along  with  the  light  company.  The  only  British  battle 
where  I  have  found  them  specially  mentioned  is  Maida, 
where  their  mention  illustrates  the  danger  of  the  system. 
Generals  wanting  more  light  troops  habitually  purloined 
the  light  companies  of  regiments  to  make  “  light  battalions 
but  not  only  did  they  do  this,  but  they  sometimes  even 
stole  the  “  flankers  ”  also  from  the  centre  companies. 

*  Sir  James  Sinclair  in  his  Observations  on  the  Military  System  of 
Great  Britain,  so  far  as  respects  the  formation  of  Infantry,  deals  with 
this  idea  at  great  length,  and  proposes  to  have  160  skirmishers  to  each 
battalion  of  640  men. 


British  use  of  Light  Troops 


75 


Stuart  had  at  Maida  not  only  the  light  companies,  but  also 
the  “  flankers  ”  of  I’egiments  left  behind  in  Sicily,  which 
had  therefore  been  deprived  of  every  marksman  that  they 
possessed — an  execrable  device.  The  system,  however,  was 
only  tentative  ;  it  soon  disappeared  ;  Wellington  never 
skimmed  the  centre  companies  of  their  good  shots,  though 
he  did  occasionally  create  a  light  battalion  of  light  com¬ 
panies — even  this  was  exceptional. 

But  th.ere._was  a  second  alternative  course  open  to  the 
British  :  instead  of  developing  more  skirmishers  in  each 
battalion,  they  might  create  new  light-infantry  corps,  or 
turn  whole  units  of  the  line  into  light  troops.  For  the 
former  there  was  good  precedent  :  in  the  War  of  the 
American  Revolution  the  British  generals  had  of  necessity 
embodied  corps  of  riflemen,  to  oppose  to  the  deadly  marks¬ 
men  from  the  backwoods  who  formed  the  most  efficient 
part  of  the  American  armies.  Such  were  Simcoe’s  Rangers, 
and  the  dismounted  part  of  Tarleton’s  famous  Legion — 
whose  remainder  consisted  of  veritable  mounted  infantry — 
the  first  of  their  sort  in  the  British  army,  since  dragoons 
had  forgotten  their  old  trade  and  become  cavalry  of  the 
line.  But  all  the  Rangers,  etc.,  had  been  disbanded  in 
1783,  and  their  use  seems  to  have  been  forgotten  before  the 
French  War  began  ;  the  system  had  to  begin  again  de  novo. 
It  was  not  till  1798  that  the  first  British  rifle  battalion 
was  created,  to  wit  the  5th  Battalion  of  the  60th  Regiment, 
or  Royal  Americans,  which  was  formed  as  a  Jiiger  unit  out 
of  the  remains  of  many  defunct  foreign  light  corps  in  British 
pay :  it  remained  mainly  German  in  composition  even 
during  the  Peninsular  War.  This  was  the  first  green- 
coated  battalion  ;  the  second  was  Coote  Manningham’s 
“  Experimental  Rifle  Corps,”  formed  in  January,  1800, 
and  finally  taken  into  the  service  after  some  vicissitudes, 
as  the  95th — a  name  famous  in  Peninsular  annals,  though 
now  almost  obliterated  by  its  new  title  of  the  “  Rifle 
Brigade.”  The  regiment  was  enlarged  to  three  battalions 
before  it  came  into  Wellington’s  hands.  Later  on,  though 


76 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


the  number  of  rifle  corps  was  not  increased,  yet  an  addition 
was  made  to  the  light  troops  of  the  British  army  by  turning 
certain  picked  battalions  into  light  infantry.  They  were 
armed  with  a  special  musket  of  light  weight,  not  with  a 
rifle,  and  all  the  companies  equally  were  instructed  in 
skirmishing  worTF!^  The  first  corps  so  treated  was  the  90th 
or  Perthshire  Light  Infantry,  which  received  the  title  in 
1794.  The  precedent  was  not,  however,  acted  on  again 
till  in  1803,  the  43rd  and  52nd,  the  famous  regiments  of  the 
Peninsular  Light  Division,  were  honoured  with  the  same 
designation.  The  last  additions  during  the  period  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars  were  the  68th  and  85th  in  1808,  and  the 
51st  and  71st  in  1809.  Most  of  these  corps  had  two  bat¬ 
talions,  but,  even  so,  the  provision  of  light  infantry  was  not 
large  for  an  army  which  had  then  nearly  200  battalions 
embodied.  There  were  also  some  foreign  corps  to  be  taken 
into  consideration,  which  stood  on  the  British  muster-rolls, 
such  as  the  two  Light  Battalions  of  the  King’s  German 
Legion,  the  Brunswick  Dels  Jagers,  and  the  Chasseurs 
Britanniques,  who  all  four  served  in  the  Peninsula.  All 
these  save  the  last  were  created  after  1803  :  but  at  least 
during  the  second  period  of  the  great  French  War,  our 
armies  were  not  practically  destitute  of  light  troops,  as  they 
were  in  1793.  We  shall  see  that  this  had  no  small  impor¬ 
tance  in  Wellington’s  tactical  devices. 

The  other  lesson  that  might  possibly  have  been  deduced 
from  the  campaigns  of  the  earlier  years  of  the  great  war 
was  the  efficacy  of  columns  for  striking  at  the  critical 
points  of  an  enemy’s  line.  The  continental  enemies  of 
France  were  affected  by  what  they  had  seen  of  this  sort  of 
success,  and  often  copied  the  formation  of  their  adversaries. 
But  it  is  notable  that  the  old  and  wholesome  prejudice  of 
the  British  in  favour  of  the  line  was  in  no  way  disturbed 
by  what  had  happened  of  late.  The  idea  that  the  column 
was  a  clumsy  and  expensive  formation  was  not  shaken, 
and  the  theory  that  infantry  ought  to  win  by  the  rapidity 
and  accuracy  of  its  shooting,  and  that  every  musket  not 


The  British  Two-deep  Line 


77 


in  the  firing-line  was  wasted,  continued  to  prevail.  The 
reply  of  the  British  to  the  ordre  mixte  was  to  reduce  the 
depth  of  the  deployed  battalion  from  three  ranks  to  two, 
because  it  had  been  discovered  that  the  fire  of  the  third 
rank  was  difficult,  dangerous  to  those  in  front,  and  prac¬ 
tically  ineffective.  Sir  David  Dundas’s  drill-book  of  1788 
with  its  Prussian  three  ranks,  which  had  been  the  official 
guide  of  the  British  infantry  of  late,  was  not  formally 
cancelled  at  first,  but  it  was  practically  disregarded,  and  the 
army  went  back  to  the  two-rank  array,  winch  it  had 
habitually  used  in  the  American  War,  and  had  abandoned 
with  regret.  Apparently  the  Duke  of  York  did  not  alto¬ 
gether  approve  this  change  :  he  at  least  once  issued  a 
General  Order,  to  remind  colonels  that  the  formation  in 
three  ranks  was  still  officially  recognized  and  ought  not  to 
be  forgotten.  But  the  permission  given  by  an  order  in 
1801,  that  inspecting  officers  might  allow  regiments  to 
appear  “  even  at  reviews  ”  in  the  two  ranks ,  probably 
marked  the  practical  end  of  the  Prussian  system.*  It  had 
certainly  been  disused  by  many  officers  long  before  that 
date,  and  it  is  certain  that  in  Abercrombie’s  Egyptian 
campaign  the  double  instead  of  the  triple  rank  was  in  general 
use.f  British  military  opinion  had  decided  that  fire  was 
everything,  and  that  the  correct  answer  to  the  French 
columnar  attack  was  to  put  more  men  into  the  firing 
line. 

A  conclusive  proof  of  the  efficacy  of  the  double  when 
opposed  to  the  triple  rank  was  very  clearly  given  at  the 
half-forgotten  Calabrian  battle  of  Maida,  three  years  after 
the  commencement  of  the  second  half  of  the  great  French 
War.  At  this  fight  the  French  General  Reynier  had  de¬ 
ployed  the  whole,  or  the  greater  part,  of  his  battalions,  who 

*  See  Fortescue,  British  Army,  iv.  p.  921. 

f  See  the  anecdote  of  the  28th  regiment  at  Alexandria,  whose 
rear  rank  faced  about,  and  fought  back-to-back  with  the  front 
rank,  when  unexpectedly  assailed  from  behind  by  French  cavalry 
which  had  passed  through  a  gap  in  the  line.  Hence  the  grant  of  the 
double  shako-plate,  before  and  behind,  made  to  the  regiment. 


78 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


were  not  as  usual  fighting  either  in  ordre  mixte  or  in  battalion 
column.  The  result  was  very  decisive — 5000  British  infantry 
in  the  thinner  formation  received  the  attack  of  6000  French 
in  the  heavier,  and  inflicted  on  them,  purely  by  superior 
fire-efficiency,  one  of  the  most  crushing  defeats  on  a  small 
scale  that  was  ever  seen,  disabling  or  taking  2000  men, 
Avith  a  total  loss  to  themselves  of  only  320.*  It  is  worth 
Avhile  remembering  that  some  of  the  officers  Avho  were 
afterwards  to  be  Wellington’s  trusted  lieutenants  were 
present  at  Maida,  including  Cole,  Kempt,  Oswald,  and 
Colbome.*  This  was  about  the  only  instance  that  I  knoAV 
Avhere  English  and  French  came  into  action  both  deployed, 
and  on  a  more  or  less  parallel  front.  Usually  it  Avas  a  case 
of  “  column  against  line.” 

Sir  Arthur  Wellesley  had  been  nine  years  absent  in 
India  before  he  returned  to  England  in  1805,  so  that  he 
had  to  learn  the  difference  between  the  Republican  and  the 
Imperial  armies  by  new  experience.  The  problem  had 
long  been  interesting  him.  Before  he  left  Calcutta  he  is 
said  to  have  remarked  to  his  confidants  that  the  French 
Avere  sweeping  everything  before  them  in  Europe  by  the 
use  of  column  formations,  but  that  he  was  convinced  that 
the  column  could,  and  would,  be  beaten  by  the  line.  What 
he  heard  after  his  return  to  England  evidently  confirmed 
him  in  this  opinion.  A  conversation  which  he  had  Avith 
Croker,  just  before  he  set  sail  on  the  expedition  which  was 
to  end  at  Vimeiro,  chances  to  have  been  preserved  in  the 
latter’s  papers,  under  the  date,  June  14,  1808.  Sitting 
silent,  lost  in  reverie  for  a  long  time,  he  was  asked  by  Croker 
the  subject  of  his  thoughts.  “  To  say  the  truth,”  he  replied, 
“  I  am  thinking  of  the  French  I  am  going  to  fight.  I  have 
not  seen  them  since  the  campaigns  in  Flanders  [1793-94] 

*  Till  lately  I  had  supposed  that  Reynier  had  at  least  his  left 
wing,  or  striking  Echelon,  in  columns  of  battalions,  but  evidence 
shown  me  by  Col.  James  proves  that,  despite  of  the  fact  that  the 
French  narratives  do  not  show  it,  the  majority  at  least  of  Reynier ’s 
men  were  deployed.  This  is  borne  out  by  Bunbury’s  narrative, 
p.  244,  where  it  is  definitely  stated,  as  well  as  by  Boothby’s,  p.  78. 


Wellington’s  System 


79 


when  they  were  capital  soldiers,  and  a  dozen  years  of 
victory  under  Bonaparte  must  have  made  them  better  still. 
’Tis  enough  to  make  one  thoughtful.  But  though  they 
may  overwhelm  me,  I  don’t  think  that  they  will  out¬ 
manoeuvre  me.  First,  because  I  am  not  afraid  of  them, 
as  every  one  else  seems  to  be,  and  secondly,  because  (if  all 
I  hear  about  their  system  is  true)  I  think  it  a  false  one 
against  steady  troops.  I  suspect  all  the  continental  armies 
are  half-beaten  before  the  battle  begins.  I  at  least  will 
not  be  frightened  beforehand.” 

Wellesley  went  out  to  Portugal,  there  to  try  what  could 
be  done  with  steady  troops  against  the  “  French  system.” 
But  it  would  be  to  convey  a  false  impression  of  his  meaning 
if  we  were  to  state  that  he  simply  went  out  to  beat  column 
with  line — though  the  essential  fact  is  sufficiently  true. 
He  went  out  to  try  his  own  conception  of  the  proper  way 
to  use  the  line  formation,  which  had  its  peculiarities  and 
its  limitations.  The  chief  of  these  were  that — 

(1)  The  line  must  not  be  exposed  before  the  moment 
of  actual  conflict  :  i.e.  it  must  be  kept  under  cover  as  much 
as  possible. 

(2)  That  till  the  critical  moment  it  must  be  screened 
by  a  line  of  skirmishers  impenetrable  to  the  enemy’s 
tirailleurs. 

(3)  That  it  must  be  properly  covered  on  its  flanks, 
either  by  the  nature  of  the  ground,  or  by  cavalry  and 
artillery. 

When  we  investigate  all  his  earlier  pitched  battles,  we 
shall  see  that  each  of  these  three  requisites  was  as  far  as 
possible  secured. 

(1)  It  was  necessary  for  success  that  the  line  should  be 
kept  concealed  from  the  enemy’s  distant  fire  of  artillery 
and  infantry  as  long  as  possible.  Hence  we  find  that  one 
of  the  most  marked  features  of  Wellesley’s  many  defensive 
battles  was  that  he  took  up,  whenever  it  was  feasible,  a 
position  which  would  mask  his  main  line,  and  show  nothing 
to  the  enemy  but  his  skirmishers  and  possibly  his  artillery, 


80 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


for  the  latter  having  to  operate  before  the  infantry  fighting 
began,  and  being  obliged  to  take  up  positions  which  would 
command  the  ground  over  which  the  enemy  must  advance, 
were  often  visible  from  the  first.  At  Vimeiro,  Wellesley 
so  concealed  his  army  that  Junot,  thinking  to  turn  his  left 
flank,  found  his  turning  column  itself  outflanked  by  troops 
moved  under  cover  behind  a  skyline.  At  Bussaco,  Massena, 
no  mean  general,  mistook  Wellington’s  centre  for  his  extreme 
right,  and  found  his  attacking  columns  *  well  outflanked 
when  the  attack  had  been  pressed  to  its  issue.  At  Salamanca 
it  was  much  the  same  ;  the  main  part  of  the  British  fine 
was  well  concealed  behind  a  low  ridge  of  hills,  while 
Pakenham’s  division  and  its  attendant  cavalry,  the  force 
which  executed  the  great  stroke,  were  concealed  in  a  wooded 
tract,  far  outside  the  French  marching  column  that  vainly 
thought  to  get  round  the  allied  right  wing.  At  Waterloo, 
the  clearest  case  of  all,  the  whole  of  Wellington’s  infantry 
of  the  front  line  was  so  far  drawn  back  from  the  edge  of 
the  slope  that  it  was  invisible,  till  the  enemy  had  climbed 
to  the  brow  of  the  plateau  on  which  it  was  arrayed.  Only 
the  artillery,  the  skirmishing  fine,  and  the  troops  in  the 
outlying  posts  of  Hougoumont  and  La  Haye  Sainte  could 
be  made  out  by  Napoleon’s  eye.  Talavera,  as  I  shall 
mention  below,  is  the  only  exception  to  this  general  rule  in 
the  Duke’s  defensive  battles. 

Wellington’s  ideal  position  was  a  rising  ground  with  a 
long  glacis  of  slope  in  front,  and  a  plateau  or  a  dip  behind 
it.  The  infantry  was  drawn  back  from  the  skyline,  and 
placed  behind  the  crest,  if  the  hill  were  saddle-backed,  or 
some  hundreds  of  yards  away  from  the  edge,  if  it  were 
flat-topped.  There  they  stood  or  lay  till  they  were  wanted, 
secure  from  artillery  fire  :  they  moved  forward  to  their 
actual  fighting  ground  only  when  the  fire-combat  of 
infantry  was  to  begin.  Every  one  will  remember  Welling¬ 
ton’s  caustic  comment  on  the  Prussian  order  of  battle  at 
Ligny,  where  Bliicher  had  drawn  out  his  army  in  a  chequered 
*  Those  of  Reynier.  See  my  Peninsular  War,  Bussaco  chapter. 


The  Advantages  of  Cover 


81 


array  all  along  the  declivity  of  a  descending  slope.  “  Damn¬ 
ably  mauled  these  fellows  will  be — every  man  visible  to 
the  enemy.”  *  Or  in  more  solemn  phrase,  as  he  afterwards 
consigned  it  to  paper  :  “  I  told  the  Prussian  officers,  in 
the  presence  of  Colonel  Hardinge,  that  according  to  my 
judgment,  the  exposure  of  the  advanced  columns,  and 
indeed  of  the  army,  to  cannonade,  standing  as  they  did 
displayed  to  the  aim  of  the  enemy’s  fire,  was  not  prudent.”  f 

By  the  end  of  the  Peninsular  War,  as  I  have  already 
had  occasion  to  observe,  it  had  become  so  well  known  to 
the  French  that  Wellington’s  army,  ready  for  a  battle, 
would  be  under  cover,  that  he  was  able,  as  at  Fuente 
Guinaldo  in  1811,  and  at  Sorauren  in  1813,  to  play  off  on 
them  the  trick  of  offering  to  fight  in  a  half -manned  position, 
because  he  knew  that  they  would  take  it  for  granted  that 
the  ground  invisible  to  them  was  held  by  an  adequate 
force.  There  is  an  interesting  testimony  to  the  same 
effect  in  the  Waterloo  campaign.  On  the  morning  before 
the  battle  of  Quatre  Bras  began,  General  Reille,  a  veteran 
of  the  Spanish  war,  remained  halted  for  some  time  before 
a  position  held  by  nothing  but  a  single  Dutch-Belgian 
division,  because  (as  he  expressed  it),  “  Ce  pourrait  bTprr 
etre  une  bataille  d’Espagne — les  troupes  Anglaises  se 
montreraient  quand  il  en  serait  temps.”  $  This  was  the 
lesson  taught  by  many  years  of  Peninsular  experience — but 
on  this  occasion  it  chanced  to  be  singularly  ill  applied — 
since  a  vigorous  push  would  have  shown  Reille  that  there 
were  as  yet  no  red-coats  concealed  behind  the  trees  of  the 
Bois  de  Bossu. 

It  was  only  when  absolute  necessity  compelled,  owing 
to  there  being  no  cover  available  in  some  parts  of  his  chosen 
position,  that  Wellington  very  occasionally  left  troops  in 
his  battle-front  visible  to  the  enemy,  and  exposed  to  artillery 

*  Soe  Stanhope’s  Conversations  with  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  p.  109. 

t  The  phrase  comes  from  the  De  Ros  Manuscript,  quoted  in 
Maxwell’s  Life  of  Wellington,  ii.  p.  20. 

%  Foy’s  Vie  Militaire,  od.  Girod  de  l’Ain,  pp.  270,  271. 

G 


82 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


fire  from  a  distance.  The  best  known  instance  of  this 
occurred  with  his  centre  brigades  at  Talavera,  who  were 
unmasked  perforce,  because  between  the  strong  hill  which 
protected  his  left,  and  the  olive  groves  which  covered  his 
right,  there  were  many  hundred  yards  of  open  ground, 
without  any  serviceable  dips  or  undulations  to  conceal  the 
line.  And  this  was  almost  the  only  battle  in  which  we  find 
record  of  his  troops  having  suffered  heavily  by  artillery 
fire  before  the  clash  of  infantry  fighting  began.* 

(2)  The  second  postulate  of  Wellington’s  system  was, 
as  I  have  remarked  above,  that  the  infantry  of  his  battle¬ 
line  must  be  covered  by  such  a  powerful  screen  of  skirmishers, 
that  the  enemy’s  advanced  line  of  tirailleurs  should  never 
be  able  to  get  near  enough  to  it  to  cause  any  real  molesta¬ 
tion,  and  that  it  should  not  be  seriously  engaged  before 
the  French  supporting  columns  came  up  to  deliver  the 
main  attack.  His  old  experience  in  Flanders  in  1794  had 
taught  him  that  the  line  cannot  contend  at  advantage  with 
a  swarm  of  light  troops,  who  yield  when  charged,  but 
return  the  moment  that  the  charge  has  stopped  and  the 
line  has  drawn  back  to  its  original  position.  There  were 
evil  memories  of  this  sort  not  only  from  Flanders,  but  from 
the  Egyptian  Expedition  of  1801,  when  Abercrombie’s  less 
engaged  brigades  suffered  severely  at  the  battle  of  Alex¬ 
andria  from  the  incessant  fire  of  skirmishers  at  long  range, 
to  whom  no  proper  opposition  was  made.f 

The  device  which  Wellesley  practised  was  to  make  sure 
that  he  should  always  have  a  skirmishing  screen  of  his  own, 
so  strong  that  the  French  tirailleurs  should  never  be  able 
to  force  it  in  and  to  get  close  to  the  main  line.  The  moment 
that  he  had  assumed  command  in  April,  1809,  he  set  to 
work  to  secure  this  desideratum.  His  first  measure  was  to 
add  to  every  brigade  in  his  army  an  extra  company  of 

*  Donkin’s  Brigade,  Wellington’s  last  reserve,  which  was  never 
engaged  with  infantry  all  day,  lost  195  men  without  firing  a  shot — 
save  by  its  skirmishers. 

t  See  Fortescue,  iv.  p.  841. 


Ample  Provision  op  Light  Troops  83 


trained  riflemen,  to  reinforce  the  three  light  companies  of 
the  brigade.* * * §  In  April,  1809,  he  broke  up  the  oldest  rifle 
battalion  in  the  British  army,  the  fifth  of  the  60th  regiment, 
and  began  to  distribute  a  company  of  it  to  each  of  his 
brigades,  save  to  those  of  the  King’s  German  Legion,  which 
were  served  by  special  rifle  companies  of  their  own.f  Thus 
each  of  the  brigades  which  fought  at  Talavera  had  a  special 
extra  provision  of  light  troops.  Furthermore,  when  the 
new  Light  Division  was  instituted  on  the  1st  of  March,  1810, 
each  of  its  two  brigades  was  given  a  number  of  companies 
of  the  95th  rifles :  and  of  the  other  brigades  formed  in  1810-1 1 
most  were  provided  with  an  extra  light  company  by  means 
of  taking  fractions  from  the  95th  or  the  newly  arrived 
Brunswick  Oels  Jiigers,  and  those  which  were  not,  had  light- 
infantry  corps  of  their  own  inside  them.  But  this  was 
not  a  114 

In  the  summer  of  1810,  Wellington  began  the  system 
of  incorporating  a  Portuguese  brigade  of  five  battalions  in 
each  British  division.  Of  these  five  one  was  always  §  a 
Cacjador  or  light  battalion,  specially  trained  for  skirmishing. 


*  Tho  interesting  circular  to  Brigadiers  conveying  this  informa¬ 
tion  runs,  “  The  Commander  of  the  Forces  recommends  the  com¬ 
panies  of  the  5/60th  regiment  to  the  particular  care  of  the  officers 
commanding  the  brigades  to  which  they  are  attached :  they  will 
find  them  to  be  most  useful,  active,  and  brave  troops  in  the  field, 
and  they  will  add  essentially  to  the  strength  of  their  brigades.” — 
General  Orders,  p.  262. 

f  These  “  independent  rifle  companies  ”  of  the  K.G.L.,  which 
appear  in  so  many  “  morning  states,”  were  isolated  men  left  behind 
(mainly,  no  doubt,  in  hospital)  by  the  two  “  Light  Battalions  ”  of 
the  K.G.L.  when  they  left  Portugal  in  company  with  Sir  John  Moore. 

t  To  descend  into  detail,  in  May,  1811,  the  5/60th  supplied  light 
companies  to  Stopford’s,  Nightingale’s,  Mackinnon’s  (3  companies), 
Myers’,  Hulse’s,  Colborne’s,  Hoghton’s,  and  Abercrombie’s  brigades. 
The  Brunswick  Oels  Jagers  supplied  the  extra  company  to  Hay’s 
and  Dunlop’s  brigades,  while  tho  rest  of  the  battalion  was  in  Sontag’s 
brigade.  The  3/95th  gave  a  company  to  Howard’s  brigade,  while  the 
other  battalions  of  this  famous  rifle  corps  were  in  the  two  brigados  of 
the  Light  Division.  The  German  brigade  of  Lowe  had  its  own  “inde¬ 
pendent  light  companies.”  Only  Colville’s  and  Burne’s  brigados  had 
no  such  provision  in  the  whole  army. 

§  Save  in  Hamilton’s  Portuguese  division,  which  did  not  got 
its  Chador  battalions  till  1812. 


84 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


The  old  Portuguese  army  had  not  included  such  battalions, 
which  were  all  newly  raised  corps,  intended  entirely  for  light 
infantry  work.  There  were  originally  only  six  of  them, 
but  Wellington  ordered  a  second  six  to  be  raised  in  1811, 
utilizing  as  the  cadre  of  the  7th,  8th,  9th  the  old  Loyal 
Lusitanian  Legion,  which  Sir  Robert  Wilson  had  formed 
early  in  the  war.  As  the  Portuguese  army  contained  just 
twenty-four  regiments  of  the  line,  in  twelve  brigades,  the 
Ca9ador  battalion  gave  precisely  one  unit  to  each  brigade, 
save  that  two  were  incorporated  in  the  Light  Division,  while 
none  was  left  with  the  two  regiments  which  remained  behind 
in  garrison  at  Abrantes  and  at  Cadiz  respectively. 

As  the  Cayador  battalions  were  essentially  light  troops, 
and  used  wholly  for  skirmishing,  it  resulted  that  when  an 
Anglo -Portuguese  division  of  the  normal  strength  of  six 
British  and  five  Portuguese  battalions  set  itself  in  battle 
array,  it  sent  out  a  skirmishing  line  of  no  less  than  eight 
British  and  ten  Portuguese  companies,  viz.  one  each  from 
the  line  battalions,  two  of  British  rifles,  six  of  Ca9adores, 
or  a  total  of  from  1200  to  1500  men  to  a  total  strength  of 
5000  to  5500.  This,  as  will  be  obvious,  was  a  very  powerful 
protective  sheath  to  cover  the  front  of  the  division.  It 
was  not  always  required — the  French  did  not  invariably 
send  out  a  skirmishing  line  in  advance  of  their  main  attack  : 
but  when  they  did,  it  would  always  be  restrained  and  kept 
off  from  the  main  front  of  the  divisional  line.  If  the 
enemy  wished  to  push  it  in,  he  had  to  bring  up  his  formed 
battalions  through  his  tirailleurs,  and  thus  only  could  he 
reach  the  front  of  battle.  The  French  regiments,  whether 
formed  in  ordre  mixte  or  (as  was  more  common)  in  column, 
had  to  come  to  the  front,  and  only  so  could  reach  the 
hitherto  intact  British  line.  It  may  be  noted  that  the 
enemy  rarely  used  for  his  skirmishing  line  more  than  the 
voltigeur  company  of  each  battalion ;  as  his  divisions 
averaged  ten  to  twelve  battalions  *  and  the  unit  was  a 

*  In  1811  of  the  armies  opposed  to  Wellington  (Soult’s  and 
Marmont’s)  there  was  one  division  of  6  battalions,  one  of  9,  two  of 


Advantages  of  the  Skirmishing  Screen  85 


six-company  battalion  of  600  men  or  under,  with  only  one 
voltigeur  company,  a  French  division  would  send  out  1000 
to  1200  skirmishers,  a  force  appreciably  less  than  the  light 
troops  of  a  British  division  of  approximately  equal  force. 
Hence  Wellington  never  seems  to  have  been  seriously 
incommoded  by  the  French  skirmishers. 

So  considerable  was  the  British  screen  of  light  troops 
that  the  French  not  unfrequently  mistook  it  for  a  front 
line,  and  speak  of  their  column  as  piercing  or  thrusting 
back  the  first  line  of  their  opponents,  when  all  that  they 
had  done  was  to  drive  in  a  powerful  and  obstinate  body 
of  skirmishers  bickering  in  front  of  the  real  fighting  forma¬ 
tion.*  Invariably,  we  may  say,  they  had  to  use  their 
columns  to  attack  the  two-deep  line  while  the  latter  was 
still  intact,  while  their  own  masses  had  already  been  under 
fire  for  some  time  and  were  no  longer  fresh. 

It  will  be  asked,  perhaps,  why  the  marshals  and  generals 
of  Napoleon  did  not  deploy  their  columns  before  the 
moment  of  contact.  Why  do  we  so  seldom  read  of  even  the 
ordre  mixte  in  use — Albuera  is  the  only  battle  where  we 
distinctly  find  it  mentioned  ?  The  answer  to  this  objection 
is,  firstly,  that  they  were  strongly  convinced  that  the  column 
was  the  better  striking  force  to  carry  a  given  point,  and 
that  they  were  normally  attacking  not  the  whole  British 
line  but  the  particular  section  or  sections  where  they  intended 
to  break  through.  But,  secondly,  we  may  add  that  they 
frequently  did  attempt  to  deploy,  but  always  too  late, 
since  they  waited  till  they  had  driven  in  the  British  skirmish¬ 
ing  line,  and  tried  to  assume  the  thinner  formation  when 

10,  one  of  1 1,  seven  of  12,  one  of  13.  The  battalions  varied  from  400 
apiece  in  the  5th  corps  to  over  600  in  the  1st  corps.  Tho  average 
was  about  500,  not  including  men  detached  or  in  hospital.  A  volti¬ 
geur  company  would  have  varied  between  80  and  110  men. 

*  Note  especially  Vigo-Roussillon’s  account  of  Barrosa,  where 
he  speaks  of  his  regiment  having  pierced  the  first  British  line,  when 
all  that  it  really  did  was  to  thrust  back  four  companies  of  the  95th 
rifles,  and  two  of  tho  20th  Portuguese.  Similarly  Reynior’s  report 
on  Bussaco  says  that  Merle’s  division  broke  the  front  line  of  Picton, 
and  only  failed  before  his  second.  But  the  “  front  lino  ”  was  only 
five  light  companies. 


86 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


they  were  already  under  fire  and  heavily  engaged.  It  was 
not  always  that  the  British  noted  this  endeavour— so  late 
was  it  begun,  so  instant  was  its  failure.  But  there  is 
evidence  that  it  was  tried  by  Kellermann’s  grenadiers  at 
Vimeiro,  by  part  at  least  of  Leval’s  division  at  Barrosa,  by 
Merle’s  column  at  Bussaco,  when  it  had  already  reached  the 
summit  of  the  Serra,  and  was  closely  engaged  with  Picton’s 
troops.  At  Albuera  we  have  a  good  description  of  it  from 
the  British  side.  When  Myers’  fusilier  brigade  marched 
against  the  flank  of  the  5th  Corps,  in  the  crisis  of  that  battle, 
Soult  launched  against  them  his  reserve,  the  three  regiments 
of  Werle,  which  became  at  once  locked  in  combat  at  very 
short  range  with  the  fusiliers.  “During  the  close  action,” 
writes  a  British  officer  (Blakeney  of  the  7th),  “  I  saw  their 
officers  endeavouring  to  deploy  their  columns,  but  all  to 
no  purpose.  For  as  soon  as  the  third  of  a  company  got 
out,  they  would  immediately  run  back  in  order  to  be 
covered  by  the  front  of  their  column.”  The  fact  was,  that 
the  effect  of  the  fire  of  a  British  regiment  far  exceeded  any¬ 
thing  that  the  enemy  had  been  wont  to  cope  with  when 
engaged  with  continental  troops,  and  was  altogether 
devastating.  Again  and  again  French  officers  who  came 
under  it  for  the  first  time,  made  the  miscalculation  of  trying 
the  impossible.  Nothing  could  be  more  inevitably  pro¬ 
ductive  of  confusion  and  disorder  than  to  attempt  deploy¬ 
ment  under  such  a  heavy  fire.  Wherefore  many  French 
commanders  never  tried  it  at  all,  and  thought  it  more  safe 
to  go  on  to  the  final  shock  with  their  battalions  in  the  usual 
“  column  of  divisions,”  in  which  they  had  begun  their 
attack.  This  was  little  better,  and  quite  as  costly  in  the 
end.  “  Really,”  wrote  Wellington,  in  a  moment  of  unwonted 
exhilaration,  after  the  combat  of  Sabugal,  “  these  attacks 
in  column  against  our  lines  are  very  contemptible.”  * 
This  was  after  he  had  viewed  from  the  other  bank  of  the 
Coa,  “where  I  could  see  every  movement  on  both  sides,” 
the  43rd  regiment  repulse  in  succession  three  attacks  by 
*  Wellington  to  Beresford,  Dispatches,  vii.  p.  427. 


Necessity  of  Flank  Cover  87 

French  columns  which  came  up  against  it,  one  after  the 
other. 

(3)  We  now  come  to  the  third  postulate  of  Wellington’s 
system — the  two-deep  fighting  line  must  be  covered  on  its 
Hanks,  either  by  the  ground,  or  by  cavalry  and  artillery 
support,  or  by  infantry  prolonging  the  front  beyond  the 
enemy’s  immediate  point  of  action.  At  Talavera  one  of 
his  flanks  was  covered  by  a  precipitous  hill,  the  other  by 
thick  olive  plantations.  At  Bussaco  both  the  French 
attacks  were  hopelessly  outflanked  by  troops  posted  on 
high  and  inaccessible  ground,  and  could  only  be  pushed 
frontally.  At  Fuentes  de  Onoro  the  final  fighting  position 
rested  on  a  heavily  occupied  village  at  one  end,  and  on 
the  ravine  of  the  Turon  river  upon  the  other.  At  Salamanca 
the  3rd  Division,  the  striking-force  which  won  the  battle, 
had  its  line  covered  on  its  outer  flank  by  a  British  and 
a  Portuguese  brigade  of  cavalry.  At  Vittoria  the  whole 
French  army  was  enveloped  by  the  concentric  and  con¬ 
verging  attack  of  the  much  longer  British  line.  At  Waterloo 
flank  protection  was  secured  by  the  advanced  post  of 
Hougoumont  and  a  “  refused  ”  right  wing  at  one  end  of 
the  position  :  by  the  group  of  fortified  farms  (Papelotte, 
La  Haye,  etc.),  and  a  mass  of  cavalry  at  the  other.  Welling¬ 
ton,  in  short,  was  very  careful  of  his  flanks.  Only  once 
indeed,  so  far  as  I  remember,  did  the  French  get  round  the 
outlying  end  of  his  army  and  cause  him  trouble.  This  was 
in  the  first  episode  of  Fuentes  de  Onoro,  where  the  7tli 
Division,  placed  some  way  out,  as  a  flank-guard,  suffered 
some  loss  by  being  taken  in  rear  by  French  cavalry  which 
had  made  a  great  circuit,  and  only  escaped  worse  disaster 
because  two  of  its  battalions,  the  51st  and  Chasseurs  Brit- 
anniques,  had  time  to  form  front  to  flank,  and  adapt  them¬ 
selves  to  the  situation,  and  because  a  few  British  squadrons 
sacrificed  themselves  in  checking,  so  long  as  was  possible, 
the  enemy’s  superior  horse. 

There  was  one  universally  remembered  instance  during 
the  war  which  demonstrated  the  terrible  risk  that  the  line 


88 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


might  run  if  it  were  not  properly  protected  on  the  flanks. 
At  Albuera  Colborne’s  brigade  of  the  2nd  Division  was 
thrown  into  the  fight  with  its  flank  absolutely  bare — there 
was  no  support  within  half  a  mile — by  the  recklessness  of 
its  divisional  general,  William  Stewart.  It  was  caught 
unprepared  by  two  regiments  of  French  cavalry,  charging 
in  at  an  angle,  almost  on  its  rear,  and  three  battalions  were 
literally  cut  to  pieces,  with  a  loss  of  1200  men  out  of  1600 
present,  and  five  colours.  Wellington  would  never  have 
sent  it  forward  without  the  proper  support  on  its  wings, 
and  it  is  noteworthy  that,  later  on  the  same  day,  Cole  took 
the  4th  Division  into  action  on  the  same  hill,  and  against 
the  same  enemy,  with  perfect  success,  because  he  had 
guarded  one  flank  with  a  battalion  in  column,  and  the  other 
(the  outer  and  more  exposed  one)  with  a  battalion  in  square 
and  a  brigade  of  cavalry. 

These,  then,  were  the  necessary  postulates  required  for 
the  successful  use  of  line  against  column,  and  when  they 
were  duly  borne  in  mind,  victory  was  secure  with  any 
reasonable  balance  in  numbers.  The  essential  fact  that 
lay  behind  the  oft-observed  conclusion  was  simply  that  the 
two -deep  line  enabled  a  force  to  use  every  musket  with 
effect,  while  the  “  column  of  divisions  ”  put  seven-ninths 
of  the  men  forming  it  in  a  position  where  they  could  not 
shoot  at  all,  and  even  the  ordre  mixte  praised  by  Napoleon 
placed  from  seven-twelfths  to  two-thirds  of  the  rank  and 
file  in  the  same  unhappy  condition.*  But  Albuera  is  the 
only  fight  in  the  war  in  which  there  is  definite  proof  that  the 
enemy  fought  in  the  ordre,  mixle  with  deployed  battalions 
and  battalions  in  column  ranged  alternately  in  his  front. f 

*  If  the  ordre  mixte  was  formed  by  a  regiment  of  three  battalions 
of  600  men  each,  only  634  men  out  of  1800  were  in  the  front  two  ranks. 
If  by  a  regiment  of  four  battalions  (two  deployed,  two  in  column  in 
the  flanks),  the  slightly  better  result  of  1034  men  out  of  2400  able  to 
use  their  muskets  would  bo  produced. 

f  This  I  have  from  a  document  in  the  archives  of  the  Ministry  of 
War  at  Paris,  which  says  that  “  the  line  of  attack  was  formed  by  a 
brigade  in  column  of  attack.  To  its  right  and  left  the  front  line  was 
in  a  mixed  formation  ;  that  is  to  say,  on  each  side  of  the  central  column 


Superior  Fire  of  the  Line 


89 


Usually  he  came  on  with  his  units  all  in  columns  of  divisions, 
and  very  frequently  (as  at  Bussaco  and  in  certain  episodes 
at  Talavera)  he  had  battalion  behind  battalion  in  each 
regiment.  It  was  a  gross  order  of  fighting,  but  D’Erlon 
invented  a  worse  and  a  more  clumsy  formation  at  Waterloo, 
where  he  sent  forward  whole  divisions  with  eight  or  nine 
battalions  deployed  one  behind  the  other,  so  as  to  produce 
a  front  of  only  200  men  and  a  depth  of  twenty-four — with 
only  one  man  in  twelve  able  to  use  his  musket. 

Clearly,  however,  the  column  of  divisions  (double  com¬ 
panies)  was  the  normal  French  order,  i.e.  in  a  battalion  of 
600  men  in  six  companies,  we  should  get  a  front  of  66  muskets 
and  132  men  able  to  fire,  while  468  were  in  the  rear  ranks, 
able  to  be  shot  but  not  to  shoot.  If  an  English  battalion 
of  equal  strength  lay  in  front,  in  its  two-deep  line,  it  could 
give  a  discharge  of  600  muskets  against  one  of  132,  and 
this  was  not  all.  Its  front  was  nearly  five  times  that  of 
the  French  battalion,  so  that  its  fire  lapped  round  the 
flanks  of  the  advancing  mass,  demoralizing  it  because 
there  was  no  proper  power  to  reply.  Often  the  British  line, 
during  the  moments  of  fire-combat,  somewhat  threw 
forward  its  wings  in  a  shallow  crescent,  and  blazed  with 
three  sides  of  the  column  at  once.  This  was  done  by  the 
43rd  and  52nd  at  Bussaco,  with  great  effect,  against  the 
French  brigade,  that  of  Simon,  which  came  up  the  slope 
in  front  of  them,  with  its  leading  regiment  ranged  three 
battalions  deep,  in  a  most  vulnerable  array.  How  could  it 
be  expected  that  the  column  would  prevail  ?  Effective 
against  an  enemy  who  allowed  himself  to  be  cowed  and 
beaten  by  the  sight  of  the  formidable  advancing  mass,  it 
was  helpless  against  steady  troops,  who  stood  their  ground 
and  emptied  their  muskets,  as  fast  as  they  could  load,  into 
a  mark  which  it  was  impossible  to  miss.  This,  probably, 

was  a  battalion  deployed  in  line,  and  on  each  of  the  outer  sides  of 
the  deployed  battalions  was  a  battalion  or  regiment  in  column, 
so  that  at  each  end  the  line  was  composed  of  a  column  ready  to  form 
square,  in  case  hostile  cavalry  should  attempt  to  fall  upon  one  of 
our  flanks.” 


90 


Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 


is  what  Wellington  meant  when  (as  mentioned  above)  he 
stated  to  Croker,  ere  ever  he  sailed  for  Portugal,  that  “  if 
all  I  hear  about  their  system  is  true,  I  think  it  a  false  one 
against  steady  troops.  I  suspect  all  the  continental  armies 
are  half-beaten  before  the  battle  begins.”  That  is  to  say, 
the  column  might  win  by  the  terror  that  its  massive  weight 
and  impetus  inspired  ;  but  if  the  enemy  refused  to  be 
terrorized,  he  would  be  able  to  hold  his  own,  and  to  inflict 
enormous  losses  on  the  crowded  formation. 

It  only  remains  to  be  said  that,  with  the  battalion  in 
column  of  divisions  as  unit,  the  French  had  two  ways  of 
drawing  up  their  attacking  line.  They  might  either  draw 
up  the  battalions  of  each  regiment  in  a  line  of  columns,  or 
they  might  place  them  one  behind  the  other,  making  the 
whole  regiment  into  a  single  column.  Both  methods  were 
from  time  to  time  employed.  It  was  not  details  of  arrange¬ 
ment  like  this  which  made  the  difference — the  essential 
weakness  was  the  “  column  of  divisions  ”  which  formed  the 
base  of  all  the  array — it  was  too  helpless  in  fire-contest 
against  the  line. 

The  physical  aspect  of  the  contest  between  line  and 
column  we  have  now  sufficiently  dealt  with.  What  was 
the  moral  aspect  ?  Fortunately  we  can  explain  it  with 
accuracy,  because  one  of  the  many  thousands  of  French 
officers  who  went  through  the  Peninsular  War  has  left  us, 
not  personal  anecdotes  or  confused  impressions  like  so  many 
of  his  fellows,  but  a  real  account  of  the  mental  state  of  a 
battalion  going  forward  in  column  to  attack  the  British 
line.  I  make  no  excuse  for  cpioting  in  full  the  paragraphs 
of  Bugeaud,  a  chef  de  bataillon  in  1812 — a  marshal  of  African 
fame  thirty  years  later — because  they  give  us  exactly  what 
we  want  to  know.  It  should  be  premised,  however,  that 
Bugeaud  did  not  serve  in  the  Army  of  Portugal,  nor  face 
Wellington’s  own  troops.  He  served  in  Suchet’s  army, 
along  the  Mediterranean  Coast  of  the  Peninsula,  and  his 
personal  observations  must  have  been  made  at  Castalla 
and  other  combats  in  the  East.  It  is  to  be  noted  also  that 


Bugeaud  on  Column  versus  Line  91 


lie  gives  no  account  of  the  clash  of  skirmishers  which  so 
often  took  place,  and  describes  his  column  as  going  forward 
unsheathed  to  the  main  clash  of  battle. 

“  I  served  seven  years  in  the  Peninsula,”  he  says ; 
“  during  that  time  we  sometimes  beat  the  English  in 
isolated  encounters  and  raids  [ e.cj .  Ordal]  which  as  a  field 
officer  detached  I  was  able  to  prepare  and  direct.  But  during 
that  long  period  of  war,  it  was  my  sorrow  to  see  that  only 
in  a  very  small  number  of  general  actions  did  the  British 
army  fail  to  get  the  better  of  us.  We  almost  invariably 
attacked  our  adversaries,  without  either  taking  into  account 
our  own  past  experience,  or  bearing  in  mind  that  the 
tactics  which  answered  well  enough  when  we  had  only 
Spaniards  to  deal  with,  almost  invariably  failed  when  an 
English  force  was  in  our  front. 

“  The  English  generally  held  good  defensive  positions, 
carefully  selected  and  usually  on  rising  ground,  behind  the 
crest  of  which  they  found  cover  for  a  good  part  of  their 
men.  The  usual  obligatory  cannonade  would  commence 
the  operation,  then,  in  haste,  without  duly  reconnoitring 
the  position,  without  ascertaining  whether  the  ground 
afforded  any  facilities  for  lateral  or  turning  movements, 
we  marched  straight  forward,  ‘  taking  the  bull  by  the 
horns.’  * 

“  When  we  got  to  about  a  thousand  yards  from  the 
English  line  the  men  would  begin  to  get  restless  and  excited  : 
they  exchanged  ideas  with  one  another,  their  march  began 
to  be  somewhat  precipitate,  and  was  already  growing  a 
little  disorderly.  Meanwhile  the  English,  silent  and  im¬ 
passive,  with  grounded  arms,  loomed  like  a  long  red  wall  ; 
their  aspect  was  imposing — it  impressed  novices  not  a  little. 
Soon  the  distance  began  to  grow  shorter  :  cries  of  ‘  Vive 
V Empereur ,’  *  en  avant  a  la  baionnette,’  broke  from  our  mass. 
Some  men  hoisted  their  shakos  on  their  muskets,  the 
quick-step  became  a  run  :  the  ranks  began  to  be  mixed  up  : 
the  men’s  agitation  became  tumultuous,  many  soldiers 
*  A  phrase  used  by  a  French  marshal  at  Bussaco  ! 


92  Wellington’s  Infantry  Tactics 

began  to  fire  as  they  ran.  And  all  the  while  the  red  English 
line,  still  silent  and  motionless,  even  when  we  were  only 
300  yards  away,  seemed  to  take  no  notice  of  the  storm 
which  was  about  to  beat  upon  it. 

“  The  contrast  was  striking.  More  than  one  among  us 
began  to  reflect  that  the  enemy’s  fire,  so  long  reserved, 
would  be  very  unpleasant  when  it  did  break  forth.  Our 
ardour  began  to  cool  :  the  moral  influence  (irresistible  in 
action)  of  a  calm  which  seems  undisturbed  as  opposed  to 
disorder  which  strives  to  make  up  by  noise  what  it  lacks  in 
firmness,  weighed  heavily  on  our  hearts. 

“  At  this  moment  of  painful  expectation  the  English 
line  would  make  a  quarter-turn — the  muskets  were  going 
up  to  the  ‘  ready.’  An  indefinable  sensation  nailed  to  the 
spot  many  of  our  men,  who  halted  and  opened  a  wavering 
fire.  The  enemy’s  return,  a  volley  of  simultaneous  pre¬ 
cision  and  deadly  effect,  crashed  in  upon  us  like  a  thunder¬ 
bolt.  Decimated  by  it  we  reeled  together,  staggering  under 
the  blow  and  trying  to  recover  our  equilibrium.  Then  three 
formidable  Hurrahs  termined  the  long  silence  of  our  adver¬ 
saries.  With  the  third  they  were  down  upon  us,  pressing 
us  into  a  disorderly  retreat.  But  to  our  great  surprise, 
they  did  not  pursue  their  advantage  for  more  than  some 
hundred  yards,  and  went  back  with  calm  to  their  former 
lines,  to  await  another  attack.  We  rarely  failed  to  deliver 
it  when  our  reinforcements  came  up — with  the  same  want 
of  success  and  heavier  losses.”  * 

This  is  the  picture  that  we  need  to  complete  our  study 
of  the  conflict  of  column  with  line.  The  psychology  of  the 
huddled  mass  going  forward  to  inevitable  defeat  could  not 
be  better  portrayed.  The  only  thing  that  is  hard  for  us 
to  understand  is  the  reason  which  induced  capable  men  like 
Soult,  D’Erlon,  or  Eoy  to  continue  to  use  the  columnar 
formation  all  through  the  dark  days  of  1813-14,  and  even 
in  the  final  campaign  of  Waterloo.  All  honour  must  be 

*  Reprinted  by  General  Trochu  in  his  Armie  frangaise  cn 
1867,  pp.  239,  240. 


Helplessness  of  the  Column  93 

paid,  however,  to  the  rank  and  file  who,  with  five  years 
of  such  experience  behind  them,  were  still  steadfast  and 
courageous  enough  to  put  up  a  good  fight  even  in  their 
last  offensive  battles  in  the  Pyrenees,  as  well  as  in  the 
defensive  actions  of  Orthez  and  Toulouse. 


CHAPTER  V 


Wellington’s  tactics — the  cavalry  and  artillery 

Hitherto  we  have  been  confining  our  outlook  on  Welling¬ 
ton’s  tactics  to  his  use  of  infantry.  But  a  few  words  must 
be  added  as  to  his  methods  of  handling  the  other  two 
arms — cavalry  and  artillery.  There  are  fortunately  one 
or  two  memoranda  of  his  own  which  enable  us  to  interpret 
his  views  on  the  use  of  these  arms,  which  were  to  him  mainly 
auxiliary  ;  for  the  epigram  that  he  was  “  essentially  an 
infantry  general  ”  is  in  the  main  correct,  though  it  needs 
some  comment  and  explanation.  In  the  early  part  of  his 
Peninsular  campaigning  he  -was  forced  to  be  an  “  infantry 
general,”  since  the  home  government  kept  him  unreason¬ 
ably  short  in  the  matter  of  horsemen  and  guns  till  the 
year  1811  was  far  spent.  Moreover,  the  ground  over  which 
he  had  to  fight  in  1809-10-11  must  be  considered. 

The  Iberian  Peninsula  may  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  cavalry  tactician  be  divided  into  two  sets  of  regions, 
in  the  one  of  which  the  mounted  arm  is  all-important, 
while  in  the  other  it  may,  almost  without  exaggeration,  be 
described  as  well-nigh  negligible  as  an  element  of  military 
strength,  being  only  usable  on  a  small  scale,  for  exploration 
and  observation,  and  not  being  able  to  be  employed  effec¬ 
tively  in  mass. 

To  the  first-named  class  of  regions,  the  tracts  eminently 
suitable  for  the  employment  of  cavalry,  belong  the  great 
plateau  of  Central  Spain,  the  broad  arable  p  Lai  ns  of  Old 
Castile  and  Leon,  from  Burgos  to  Ciudad  Rodrigo  and 
from  Astorga  to  Aranda.  Here,  in  a  gently  undulating 


Cavalry  and  its  Limitations 


95 


upland,  little  enclosed,  and  mainly  laid  out  in  great  common- 
fields,  cavalry  has  one  of  the  suitable  terrains  that  can  be 
found  for  it  in  Europe — as  favourable  as  Champagne,  or 
the  lowlands  of  Northern  Germany.  This  is  also,  almost 
to  the  same  extent,  the  case  with  the  loftier  and  less  culti¬ 
vated  plateau  of  New  Castile,  and  with  the  melancholy 
thinly  peopled  moors  of  La  Mancha  and  Estremadura, 
where  the  horseman  may  ride  ahead  for  twenty  or  thirty 
miles  without  meeting  any  serious  natural  obstacle,  save 
at  long  intervals  the  steep  cleft  of  a  ravine,  dry  in  summer, 
full  of  a  fierce  stream  in  winter.  Nor  are  the  great  central 
uplands  the  only  tracts  of  Spain  where  cavalry  finds  an 
admirable  field  for  operations  :  the  central  valley  of  the 
Ebro  in  Aragon,  and  the  whole  of  the  broad  plain  of 
the  Guadalquivir  in  Andalusia,  are  equally  suited  for  the 
employment  of  the  mounted  arm,  on  the  largest  scale. 
Napoleon,  therefore,  was  entirely  justified  when  he  attached 
a  very  large  proportion  of  horse  to  his  Army  of  Spain,  and 
when  he  uttered  his  dictum  that  great  portions  of  it  must 
inevitably  be  the  possession  of  the  general  who  owned  the 
larger  and  the  more  efficient  mass  of  squadrons. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  large  tracts  of  the  Peninsula 
where  cavalry  is  almost  as  useless  as  in  Switzerland  or 
Calabria.  Such  are  the  whole  Pyrenean  tract  on  the  north, 
extending  from  Catalonia,  by  Aragon  and  Navarre,  to  the 
Asturian  and  Galician  lands  along  the  southern  shore  of 
the  Bay  of  Biscay.  It  will  be  remembered  that,  during 
the  Pyrenean  Campaign  of  1813,  Wellington  sent  back 
very  nearly  all  his  cavalry  to  the  plain  of  the  Ebro,  while 
Soult  left  his  in  the  plain  of  the  Adour.  Sir  John  Moore’s 
small  but  fine  cavalry  force  was  useless  to  him  in  the 
Corunna  retreat,  when  once  Astorga  had  been  passed,  and 
the  Galician  mountains  entered.  He  sent  it  on  before 
him,  with  the  exception  of  a  squadron  or  two  kept  with  the 
rear-guard.  Soult’s  more  numerous  mounted  force,  in  that 
same  campaign,  was  only  useful  in  picking  up  Moore’s 
stragglers,  and  keeping  the  British  continuously  on  the 


96 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


march — it  was  brought  to  a  dead  stop  every  time  that  the 
retreating  army  showed  an  infantry  rear-guard,  and  stood 
at  bay  in  one  of  the  innumerable  Galician  defiles. 

There  is  another  tract  of  the  Peninsula  almost  as 
unsuited  as  the  Pyrenean  and  Galician  highlands  for  the 
use  of  cavalry — and  that  is  Portugal,  where  so  much  of 
Wellington’s  earlier  campaigning  took  place.  Deducting 
some  coast  plains  of  comparatively  small  extent,  all  Northern 
and  Central  Portugal  is  mountainous— not  for  the  most 
part  mountainous  on  a  large  scale,  with  high  summits  and 
broad  valleys,  but  mountainous  on  a  small  scale  with 
rugged  hills  of  2000  or  3000  feet,  between  which  flow  deeply- 
sunk  torrents  in  narrow  ravines — where  roads  are  all  uphill 
and  downhill  and  a  defile  occurs  every  few  miles.  It  was 
the  character  of  this  country-side  which  made  Wellington’s 
army  of  1810-11,  with  its  very  small  cavalry  force — only 
seven  British  and  four  or  five  Portuguese  regiments — 
safe  against  Massena’s  immensely  preponderant  number  of 
squadrons.  All  through  the  long  retreat  from  Almeida  to 
the  lines  of  Torres  Vedras  the  allied  army  could  never  be 
caught,  turned,  or  molested  ;  the  cavalry  on  both  sides  was 
only  employed  in  petty  rear-guard  actions,  in  which  the 
small  force  brought  the  larger  to  a  check  in  defiles,  and 
generally  gave  back  only  when  the  invader  brought  up 
infantry  to  support  his  attack.  For  all  the  good  that  it 
did  him,  Massena  might  have  left  his  7000  cavalry  behind 
him  when  he  entered  Portugal — a  few  squadrons  for  ex¬ 
ploration  was  all  that  he  needed.  Jammed  in  narrow  defiles, 
where  they  were  helpless,  his  mounted  men  were  often 
more  of  an  incumbrance  than  a  help  to  him. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  the  slopes  of  the  Portuguese 
mountains  were  once  left  behind,  Wellington  was  forced 
to  be  most  cautious,  and  to  restrict  his  action  to  favourable 
ground  (as  at  Talavera,  and  Fuentes  d’Onoro)  so  long  as 
the  enemy  was  hopelessly  superior  in  his  number  of  squadrons. 
It  was  only  after  1811,  when  his  cavalry  regiments  were 
about  doubled  in  numbers,  that  he  could  venture  down 


French  Cavalry  Tactics 


97 


into  the  plains,  and  deliver  great  battles  in  the  open  like 
Salamanca — the  first  engagement  which  he  ever  fought 
in  the  Peninsula  where  his  cavalry  was  not  inferior  by  a 
third  or  even  a  half  to  that  of  the  French. 

Beside  the  Pyrenean  regions  and  Portugal,  there  are 
other  districts  of  the  Peninsula  where  the  cavalry  arm  is 
handicapped  by  the  terrain — Catalonia  for  example,  where 
the  inland  is  one  mass  of  rugged  valleys,  the  coastland  of 
the  kingdom  of  Granada,  and  the  great  ganglion  of  mountain 
lands  where  Aragon,  Valencia,  and  New  Castile  meet.  But 
as  these  were  tracts  where  the  British  army  was  little 
engaged,  I  pass  them  over  with  a  mention.  But  it  must 
also  be  remembered  that  each  of  the  great  upland  plateaux 
of  Spain — Leon,  New  Castile,  La  Mancha,  and  Estremadura, 
is  separated  from  the  others  by  broad  mountain  belts, 
where  the  Spanish  guerillero  bands  made  their  headquarters, 
and  rendered  communication  between  plain  and  plain 
difficult  and  perilous. 

In  such  a  country  of  contrasts,  how  did  the  various 
combatants  use  their  mounted  men  during  the  six  long 
years  between  Vimeiro  and  Toulouse  ?  What  was  the 
relative  value  of  the  different  national  cavalry,  and  what 
were  its  tactics  for  battle  and  for  the  equally  important 
work  of  exploration,  and  of  the  covering  and  concealing 
the  movements  of  the  other  arms  ? 

French  cavalry  tactics  had,  by  1808,  when  the  war 
began,  developed  into  as  definite  a  system  as  those  of  the 
infantry.  Napoleon  was  fond  of  massing  his  horsemen  in 
very  large  bodies,  and  launching  them  at  the  centre  no 
less  than  at  the  flank  of  the  army  opposed  to  him.  In  the 
times  of  Marlborough  and  of  Frederic  the  Great  cavalry 
was  almost  always  drawn  up  in  long  lines  on  the  wings, 
and  used  first  for  the  beating  of  the  hostile  containing 
cavalry,  and  then  for  turning  against  the  unprotected  flank 
of  the  enemy’s  infantry  in  the  centre.  A  cavalry  dash  at 
a  weak  point  in  the  middle  of  the  hostile  front  was  very 
rare  indeed,  and  only  tried  by  the  very  few  generals  of  first 

H 


98 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


rate  intelligence,  who  had  emancipated  themselves  from 
the  old  routine  which  prescribed  the  regular  drawing  up  of 
an  army.  Marlborough’s  cavalry  charge  at  the  French 
right-centre  at  Blenheim  is  almost  the  only  first-rate 
example  of  such  a  stroke  in  the  old  wars  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Frederic’s  great  cavalry  charge  at  Rossbach, 
which  is  sometimes  quoted  as  a  parallel,  was  after  all  no 
more  than  a  sudden  rush  of  the  Prussian  flank-cavalry  at 
the  exposed  wing  of  an  army  which  was  unwisely  trying  to 
march  around  the  position  of  its  adversary.  But  Napoleon 
was  the  exponent  of  great  frontal  attacks  of  cavalry  on 
chosen  weak  spots  of  the  enemy’s  line,  which  had  already 
been  well  pounded  by  artillery  or  weakened  in  some  other 
way.  He  would  use  G000,  8000,  or  (as  at  Waterloo)  even 
12,000  men  for  one  of  these  great  strokes.  At  Austerlitz 
and  Borodino  these  charges  were  made  straight  at  the 
enemy’s  front  :  Marengo  and  Dresden  were  won  by  such 
rushes  :  Eylau  was  only  saved  from  falling  into  a  disaster 
by  a  blow  of  the  same  kind.  But  cavalry  had  to  be  used 
at  precisely  the  right  moment,  to  be  most  skilfully  led, 
and  to  be  pushed  home  without  remorse  and  despite  of  all 
losses,  if  it  was  to  be  successful.  Even  then  it  might  be 
beaten  off  by  thoroughly  cool  and  unshaken  infantry,  as 
at  Waterloo.  It  was  only  against  exhausted,  distracted, 
or  untrained  battalions  that  it  could  count  with  a  reasonable 
certainty  of  success. 

All  through  the  war  the  raw  and  badly-drilled  Spanish 
armies  supplied  the  French  squadrons  with  exactly  this 
sort  of  opportunities.  They  were  always  being  surprised 
before  they  had  been  formed  by  their  generals  in  line  of 
battle,  or  caught  in  confusion  while  they  were  executing 
some  complicated  manoeuvre.  If  attacked  while  they  were 
in  line  or  in  column  of  march,  they  always  fell  victims  to  a 
cavalry  charge,  being  from  want  of  discipline  extraordinarily 
slow  to  form  square.  As  if  this  was  not  enough,  they  were 
often  weak  enough  in  morale  to  allow  themselves  to  be 
broken  even  when  they  had  time  to  form  their  squares. 


Successes  oe  the  French  Cavalry  99 


The  battles  of  Medellin,  Ocana,  theGebora,  and  Saguntum, 
were  good  examples  of  the  power  of  a  comparatively  small 
mass  of  cavalry  skilfully  handled,  over  a  numerous  but 
ill-disciplined  infantry.  But  the  little-mentioned  combat 
of  Margalef  in  1810  is  perhaps  the  strongest  example  of  the 
kind,  for  there  six  squadrons  of  Suchet’s  cavalry  (the  13th 
Cuirassiers  supported  by  two  squadrons  of  the  3rd  Hussars) 
actually  rode  down  in  succession,  a  whole  division  of  some 
4000  men,  whom  they  caught  while  forming  line  of  battle 
from  column  of  march.  This  was  done,  too,  despite  of 
the  fact  that  the  Spanish  infantry  was  accompanied  by  three 
squadrons  of  cavalry  (who  made  the  usual  bolt  at  the 
commencement  of  the  action),  as  wrell  as  by  a  half-battery 
of  artillery. 

It  was  of  course  a  very  different  matter  when  the  French 
cavalry  had  to  face  the  steady  battalions  of  the  British 
army.  Looking  down  all  the  record  of  battles  and  skir¬ 
mishes  from  1808  down  to  1814,  I  can  only  remember  two 
occasions  when  the  enemy’s  cavalry  really  achieved  a  notable 
tactical  success.  Oddly  enough  both  fell  within  the  month 
of  May,  1811.  At  Albuera  there  occurred  that  complete 
disaster  to  a  British  infantry  brigade  which  has  already 
been  described  in  the  preceding  chapter.  The  other,  and 
much  smaller,  success  achieved  by  French  cavalry  over 
British  infantry  at  Fuentes  de  Onoro,  a  few  days  before 
the  greater  disaster  at  Albuera,  has  also  been  alluded  to.* 
These  two  disasters  were  wholly  exceptional  ;  usually 
the  British  infantry  held  its  own,  unless  it  was  absolutely 
taken  by  surprise,  and  this  even  when  attacked  frontally 
by  cavalry  while  it  was  deployed  in  the  two  deep  line,  with¬ 
out  forming  square.  If  the  British  had  their  flanks  covered, 
they  were  perfectly  safe,  and  turned  back  any  charge  with 
ease. 

Indeed  the  repulse  of  cavalry  by  British  troops  in  line, 
who  did  not  take  the  trouble  to  form  square  because  their 
flanks  were  covered,  was  not  infrequent  in  the  Peninsular 
*  See  page  87  above. 


100 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


War.  The  classic  instance  is  that  of  the  5th  Northumber¬ 
land  Fusiliers  at  El  Bodon  in  1811,  who  advanced  in  line 
firing  against  two  French  cavalry  regiments  and  drove 
them  off  the  heights,  being  able  to  do  so  because  they  had 
a  squadron  or  two  of  British  horse  to  protect  them  from 
being  turned.  A  very  similar  feat  was  performed  by  the 
52nd  at  Sabugal  in  1811  :  and  Harvey’s  Portuguese  brigade 
did  as  much  at  Albuera. 

Much  more,  of  course,  was  the  square  impregnable. 
When  once  safely  placed  in  that  formation,  British  troops 
habitually  not  only  withstood  cavalry  charges  at  a  stand¬ 
still,  but  made  long  movements  over  a  battlefield  inun¬ 
dated  by  the  hostile  cavalry.  At  Fuentes  de  Onoro  the 
Light  Division,  three  British  and  two  Portuguese  squares, 
retreated  at  leisure  for  two  miles  while  beset  by  four  brigades 
of  French  cavalry,  and  reached  the  ground  which  they  had 
been  ordered  to  take  up  with  a  total  loss  of  one  killed  and 
thirty-four  wounded.  Similarly  at  El  Bodon  the  square 
composed  of  the  5th  and  77th  retreated  for  six  miles,  in  the 
face  of  two  cavalry  brigades  which  could  never  break 
into  them.* 

Indeed  it  may  be  stated,  as  a  rule  almost  without 
exception,  that  troops  in  square,  whether  British  or  French, 
were  never  broken  during  the  Peninsular  War  even  by 
very  desperate  and  gallant  charges.  One  of  the  best 
instances  of  this  general  rule  was  the  case  of  the  combat  of 
Barquilla,  where  two  grenadier  companies  of  the  French 
22nd,  surprised  while  covering  a  foraging  party  by  five 
squadrons  of  British  cavalry,  got  away  in  a  level  country 
after  having  been  charged  successively  by  three  squadrons 
of  the  1st  Hussars  of  the  German  Legion,  the  16th  and  the 
14th  Light  Dragoons.  One  of  these  three  squadron-charges, 
at  least  (that  of  the  14th),  had  been  pushed  home  so  hand¬ 
somely  that  an  officer  and  nine  men  fell  actually  among 
the  French  front  rank,  and  a  French  observer  noted  bayonets 

*  For  details  see  below,  in  the  chapter  dealing  with  General 
Picton,  p.  134. 


Cavalry  Action  against  Squares  101 

broken,  and  musket  barrels  deeply  cut  into  by  the  sweeping 
blows  of  the  light  dragoons,  who  yet  failed  entirely  to 
break  in. 

There  was  indeed  only  one  extraordinary  case  of  properly 
formed  squares  being  broken  during  the  whole  war,  a  case 
as  exceptional  in  one  way  as  the  disaster  to  Colborne’s 
brigade  at  Albuera  was  in  the  other.  This  was  at  the 
combat  of  Garcia  Hernandez,  on  the  morning  after  the 
battle  of  Salamanca,  where  the  heavy  dragoons  of  the 
K.  G.  L.  delivered  what  Foy  (the  French  historian  of 
the  war)  called  the  best  charge  that  he  had  ever  seen.  The 
rear-guard  of  Marmont’s  army  had  been  formed  of  the  one 
division  which  had  not  been  seriously  engaged  in  the 
battle,  so  that  it  could  not  be  said  to  have  been  composed 
of  shaken  or  demoralized  troops.  Nevertheless,  two  of  its 
squares  were  actually  broken  by  the  legionary  dragoons, 
though  drawn  up  without  haste  or  hurry  on  a  hillside 
favourable  for  defensive  action.  According  to  Beamish’s 
History  of  the  German  Legion,  a  wrork  composed  a  few  years 
later  from  the  testimony  of  eyewitnesses,  the  first  square 
was  broken  by  a  mortally  wounded  horse,  carrying  a  dead 
rider,  leaping  right  upon  the  kneeling  front  rank  of  the 
square,  and  bearing  down  half  a  dozen  men  by  its  struggles 
and  kicking.  An  officer,  Captain  Gleichen,  spurred  his 
horse  into  the  gap  thus  created,  his  men  followed,  a  wedge 
was  thrust  into  the  square,  and  it  broke  up,  the  large 
majority  of  the  men  surrendering.  The  second  square, 
belonging  to  the  same  regiment,  the  6th  Leger,  was  a  little 
higher  up  the  hillside  than  the  first  :  it  was  a  witness  of 
the  destruction  of  the  sister-battalion,  and  seems  to  have 
been  shaken  by  the  sight  :  at  any  rate,  when  assailed  a 
few  minutes  later  by  another  squadron  of  the  German 
Dragoons,  it  gave  a  rather  wild  though  destructive  volley, 
and  wavered  at  the  moment  of  receiving  the  attack,  bulging 
in  at  the  first  charge.  This  was,  of  course,  fatal.  The 
broken  squares  lost  1400  prisoners,  beside  some  200  killed 
a  nd  wounded.  The  victorious  dragoons  paid  a  fairly  high 


102 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


price  for  their  success,  losing  4  officers  and  50  men  killed, 
and  2  officers,  and  60  men  wounded  out  of  700  present ;  the 
extraordinary  proportion  of  killed  to  wounded,  54  to  62 
marking  the  deadly  effect  of  musketry  at  the  closest  possible 
quarters. 

This  (as  I  said  before)  was  the  exception  that  proved 
the  rule  :  the  invulnerability  of  a  steady  square  was  such 
a  commonplace,  that  Foy  and  the  other  old  officers  of  the 
Army  of  Spain,  looked  with  dismay  upon  Napoleon’s  great 
attempt  at  Waterloo  to  break  down  the  long  line  of  British 
squares  between  La  Haye  Sainte  and  Hougoumont,  by  the 
charges  of  some  ten  or  twelve  thousand  cavalry  massed  on 
a  short  front  of  less  than  a  mile.  The  Emperor  had  not 
allowed  for  the  superior  resisting  power  of  a  thoroughly 
good  infantry. 

Of  fights  between  cavalry  and  cavalry,  when  the  two 
sides  were  present  in  numbers  so  fairly  equal  as  to  make  the 
struggle  a  fair  test  of  their  relative  efficiency,  there  were 
comparatively  few  in  the  Peninsular  War.  In  the  early 
days  of  the  war  Wellington  was  too  scantily  provided  with 
horsemen,  and  could  never  afford  to  engage  in  a  cavalry 
battle  on  a  large  scale.  He  had  only  six  regiments  at 
Talavera  in  1809,  only  seven  in  the  Bussaco  campaign  of 
1810.  When  he  divided  his  army  for  the  simultaneous 
campaign  in  Beira  and  in  Estremadura  in  March,  1811,  he 
could  only  give  Beresford  three  regiments,  and  keep  four 
for  himself.  Nor  could  the  deficiency  be  supplied  (as  was 
done  in  the  artillery  arm)  by  using  Portuguese  auxiliaries. 
The  cavalry  of  that  nation  was  so  weak  and  so  badly 
mounted  that  it  is  doubtful  whether  there  were  ever  so 
many  as  2000  of  them  in  the  field  at  once.  Many  of  the 
twelve  regiments  were  never  mounted,  and  did  garrison 
duty  as  infantry  throughout  the  war. 

It  was  not  till  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1811  that 
Wellington  at  last  began  to  get  large  reinforcements  of  the 
mounted  arm  from  England,  which  more  than  doubled  his 
strength,  for  in  the  campaign  of  1812  he  had  no  less  than 


Wellington  and  his  Cavalry 


103 


fifteen  regiments  instead  of  seven.  In  the  winter  of  1812-13 
further  reinforcements  came  out,  and  in  the  Vittoria  cam¬ 
paign  he  had  at  last  a  powerful  cavalry  equal  or  superior 
to  that  of  the  French.* 

Yet  even  allowing  for  the  weakness  of  Wellington’s 
mounted  strength  in  his  earlier  campaigns,  w7e  must  acknow¬ 
ledge  that  they  played  a  comparatively  small  part  in  his 
scheme  of  operations.  Though  his  dragoons  did  good 
service  in  keeping  his  front  covered,  and  performed  many 
gallant  exploits  (wre  need  only  mention  Talavera  and 
Fuentes  de  Ofioro  to  instance  good  self-sacrificing  w'ork 
done),  they  were  seldom  used  as  part  of  the  main  striking 
force  that  won  a  victory.  Indeed,  the  charge  of  Le  Mar- 
chant’s  heavy  brigade  at  Salamanca  is  about  the  only 
instance  that  can  be  cited  of  really  decisive  action  by  cavalry 
in  any  of  the  Duke’s  battles.  There  were  other  notable 
successes  to  be  remembered,  but  they  were  in  side  issues, 
and  often  not  under  the  chief’s  own  eye — as,  for  example, 
Bock’s  breaking  of  the  squares  at  Garcia  Hernandez  on  the 
day  after  Salamanca,  and  Lumley’s  very  creditable  victory 
over  Latour  Maubourg  at  Usagre  on  May  25,  1811. 

Even  when  Wellington  had  at  last  a  large  cavalry  force 
in  1812-14,  it  was  seldom  found  massed,  and  I  believe  that 
more  than  three  brigades  were  never  found  acting  together. 
Such  a  force  as  six  regiments  was  seldom  seen  in  line  and 
engaged.  For  the  use  of  cavalry  as  a  screen  we  may 
mention  the  combat  of  Venta  del  Pozo,  during  the  retreat 
from  Burgos  in  1812.  This  wras  a  skirmish  fought  by  two 
brigades  to  cover  the  withdrawal  of  the  infantry,  which 
had  to  hurry  hard  on  the  way  toward  Salamanca  and 
safety. 

Something,  no  doubt,  must  be  allowed  for  the  fact  that 
Wellington  never,  till  the  Waterloo  campaign,  had  an 
officer  of  proved  ability  in  chief  command  of  his  cavalry. 

*  Though  a  few  depleted  regiments  also  went  home,  so  that  the 
total  strength  never  was  over  18  regiments,  9000  horse  or  under,  to 
70,000  men  in  all.  See  pages  192-3. 


104 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


Stapleton  Cotton,  who  served  so  long  in  that  capacity,  was 
not  a  man  of  mark.  Lumley,  who  had  a  short  but  dis¬ 
tinguished  career  as  a  divisional  commander,  went  home 
sick  in  1811,  and  Le  Marchant,  who  came  out  from  home 
with  a  high  reputation,  was  most  unfortunately  killed  in 
his  first  battle,  Salamanca,  where  his  brigade  did  so  much 
to  settle  the  fortunes  of  the  day.  But  allowing  for  all 
this,  it  remains  clear  that  Wellington  made  comparatively 
little  use  of  the  cavalry  arm — which  could  hardly  have  been 
expected  when  we  remember  how  effectively  he  had  used 
his  horse  at  Assaye,  quite  early  in  his  career.  Possibly  the 
fact  that  he  was  so  hopelessly  outmatched  in  this  arm  in 
1809-11  sunk  so  much  into  his  soul,  that  when  he  got  his 
chance,  later  on,  he  was  not  ready  to  use  it.  Certainly  several 
cases  can  be  cited  where  it  was  not  duly  used  to  press  a  com¬ 
pleted  victory — most  particularly  after  Vittoria  and  Orthez. 
There  is  no  concealing  the  fact  that  Wellington’s  reluctance 
to  use  great  cavalry  attacks  was,  at  bottom,  due  to  his 
doubts  as  to  the  tactical  skill  of  his  senior  officers,  and  the 
power  of  his  regiments  to  manoeuvre.  He  divulged  his 
views  on  the  subject,  twelve  years  after  the  war  was  over, 
in  a  letter  to  Lord  John  Russell,  dated  July  31,  1826.  “  I 

considered  our  cavalry,”  he  wrote,  “  so  inferior  to  the 
French  from  want  of  order,  that  although  I  considered  one 
of  our  squadrons  a  match  for  two  French,  yet  I  did  not 
care  to  see  four  British  opposed  to  four  French,  and  still 
more  so  as  the  numbers  increased,  and  order  (of  course) 
became  more  necessary.  They  could  gallop,  but  could  not 
preserve  their  order.” 

This  seems  a  very  hard  judgment,  when  we  examine 
in  detail  the  cavalry  annals  of  the  Peninsular  War.  There 
were  cases,  no  doubt,  where  English  regiments  threw 
away  their  chances  by  their  blind  fury  in  charging,  and 
either  got  cut  up  from  pursuing  an  original  advantage  to 
a  reckless  length,  or  at  any  rate  missed  an  opportunity  by 
over-great  dispersion  or  riding  off  the  field.  The  earliest 
case  was  seen  at  Vimeiro  just  after  Wellington’s  first 


Some  Reckless  Cavalry  Charges  105 


landing  in  the  Peninsula,  when  two  squadrons  of  the  20th 
Light  Dragoons,  after  successfully  cutting  up  a  beaten 
column  of  infantry,  pushed  on  for  half  a  mile  in  great  dis¬ 
order,  to  charge  Junot’s  cavalry  reserves,  and  were  horribly 
maltreated — losing  about  one  man  in  four.  An  equally 
irrational  exploit  took  place  at  Talavera,  where  the  23rd 
Light  Dragoons,  beaten  off  in  a  charge  against  a  square 
which  they  had  been  ordered  to  attack,  rushed  on  beyond 
it,  against  three  successive  lines  of  French  cavalry,  pierced 
the  first,  were  stopped  by  the  second,  and  had  to  cut  their 
way  back  with  a  loss  of  105  prisoners  and  102  killed  and 
wounded — nearly  half  their  strength.  An  equally  headlong 
business  was  the  charge  of  the  13th  Light  Dragoons  at 
Campo  Mayor  on  March  25, 1811,  when  that  regiment,  having 
beaten  in  fair  fight  the  French  26th  Dragoons,  and  captured 
eighteen  siege-guns  which  were  retreating  on  the  road, 
galloped  on  for  more  than  six  miles,  sabring  the  scattered 
fugitives,  till  they  were  actually  brought  up  by  the  fire  of 
the  fortress  of  Badajoz,  on  to  whose  very  glacis  they  had 
made  their  way.  The  captured  guns,  meanwhile,  were 
picked  up  by  the  French  infantry  who  had  been  retreating 
along  the  high-road  behind  their  routed  cavalry,  and 
brought  off  in  safety — the  13th  not  having  left  a  single 
man  to  secure  them.  Here,  at  any  rate,  not  much  loss  was 
suffered,  though  a  great  capture  was  missed,  but  similar 
galloping  tactics  on  June  11, 1812,  at  the  combat  of  Maguilla, 
led  to  a  complete  disaster.  Slade’s  heavy  brigade  (1st 
Royals  and  3rd  Dragoon  Guards)  fell  in  with  L’Allemand’s 
French  brigade,  the  17th  and  27th  Dragoons.  Each  drew 
up,  but  L’Allemand  had  placed  one  squadron  in  reserve  far 
beyond  the  sky  line,  and  out  of  sight.  Slade  charged,  beat 
the  five  squadrons  immediately  opposed  to  him,  and  then 
(without  reforming  or  setting  aside  any  supports)  galloped 
after  the  broken  French  brigade  in  complete  disorder  for 
a  mile,  till  he  came  parallel  to  the  unperceived  reserve 
squadron,  which  charged  him  in  flank  and  rear  :  the  rest 
of  the  French  halted  and  turned  ;  Slade  could  not  stand,  and 


106 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


was  routed,  having  40  casualties  and  118  prisoners.  Wel¬ 
lington  wrote  about  this  to  Hill :  “  I  have  never  been  more 
annoyed  than  by  Slade’s  affair.  Our  officers  of  cavalry 
have  acquired  a  trick  of  galloping  at  everything.  They 
never  consider  the  situation,  never  think  of  manoeuvring 
before  an  enemy,  and  never  keep  back  or  provide  for  a 
reserve.  All  cavalry  should  charge  in  two  lines,  and  at 
least  one-third  should  be  ordered  beforehand  to  pull  up  and 
reform,  as  soon  as  the  charge  has  been  delivered,  and  the 
enemy  been  broken.”  * 

In  the  first  three  of  the  cases  mentioned  above,  the 
discredit  of  the  rash  and  inconsiderate  pressing  on  of  the 
charge  falls  on  the  regimental  officers — in  the  last  on 
the  brigadier,  Slade.  It  must  be  confessed  that  Wellington 
was  not  very  happy  in  his  senior  cavalry  officers — Erskine, 
Long,  and  Slade  have  all  some  bad  marks  against  them— 
especially  the  last-named,  whose  proceedings  seem  nearly 
to  have  broken  the  heart  of  the  lively  and  intelligent 
diarist  Tomkinson,  of  the  16th  Light  Dragoons,  who  had  the 
misfortune  to  serve  long  under  him.  Stapleton  Cotton,  the 
commander  of  the  whole  cavalry,  was  but  a  mediocrity  ; 
every  one  will  remember  his  old  chief’s  uncomplimentary 
remarks  about  him  apropos  of  the  siege  of  Bhurtpore.  The 
man  who  ought  to  have  been  in  charge  of  the  British  horse 
during  the  whole  war  was  Lord  Paget,  who  had  handled 
Sir  John  Moore’s  five  cavalry  regiments  with  such  admirable 
skill  and  daring  during  the  Corunna  campaign  :  his  two 
little  fights  of  Sahagun  and  Benevente  were  models  in 
their  way.  But  he  was  unhappily  never  employed  again 
till  Waterloo — where  his  doings,  under  his  new  name  of 
Lord  Uxbridge,  are  sufficiently  well  known.  But  a  question 
of  seniority,  and  an  unhappy  family  quarrel  with  the 
Wellesleys  (having  absconded  with  the  wife  of  Wellington’s 
brother  Henry,  he  fought  a  duel  with  her  brother  in  conse¬ 
quence)  prevented  him  from  seeing  service  under  the  Duke  in 
the  eventful  years  1809-14.  Of  the  cavalry  generals  who  took 

*  See  Dispatches,  vol.  viii.  p.  112. 


Lumley’s  Victory  at  Usagre 


107 


partin  the  great  campaigns,  after  Paget  the  most  successful 
was  Lumley,  who  has  two  very  fine  achievements  to  his 
credit — the  containing  of  Soult’s  superior  cavalry  during 
the  crisis  of  the  battle  of  Albuera,  and  the  combat  of  Usagre, 
of  May  25, 181 1 ,  noted  above.  This  was  considered  such  an 
admirable  piece  of  work  by  the  enemy,  that  it  is  related  at 
great  length  in  Picard’s  Histoire  de  la  Cavalerie,  alone 
among  all  British  successes  of  the  Peninsular  War. 

It  needs  a  word  of  notice,  as  it  is  hardly  mentioned  in  the 
Wellington  dispatches,  and  very  briefly  by  Napier.  Latour- 
Maubourg  had  been  sent  by  Soult  to  push  back  Beresford’s 
advanced  posts,  and  discover  his  position.  He  had  a  very 
large  force — two  brigades  of  dragoons  and  four  regiments 
of  light  cavalry,  in  all  3500  sabres.  Lumley,  who  was 
screening  Beresford’s  movements,  had  only  three  British 
regiments  (3rd  Dragoon  Guards,  4th  Dragoons,  13th  Light 
Dragoons),  980  sabres,  and  Madden’s  and  Otway’s  Portuguese 
brigades,  1000  sabres,  with  300  of  Penne  Villemur’s  Spanish 
horse.  Wishing  to  contain  the  French  advance  as  long  as 
possible,  he  took  up  a  position  behind  the  bridge  and  village 
of  Usagre,  a  defile  through  which  the  French  must  pass  in 
order  to  reach  him.  Latour-Maubourg,  relying  on  the 
immense  superiority  of  numbers  which  he  possessed,  was 
reckless  in  his  tactics.  After  sending  off  a  brigade  of  light 
horse  to  turn  Lumley’s  position,  by  a  very  long  detour  and 
distant  fords,  he  pushed  his  other  three  brigades  into  the 
village,  with  orders  to  cross  the  bridge  and  press  the  enemy 
in  front.  Lumley  was  showing  nothing  but  a  line  of 
Portuguese  vedettes,  having  withdrawn  his  squadrons 
behind  the  sky  line.  He  was  apprised  of  the  turning 
movement,  but,  knowing  the  ground  better  than  the 
French,  was  aware  that  it  would  take  a  very  much  longer 
time  than  the  enemy  expected,  so  resolved  to  hold  his 
position  to  the  last  moment.  He  allowed  the  two  leading 
regiments  of  Bron’s  dragoons  to  pass  the  bridge  and  form 
on  the  nearer  side,  and  then,  while  the  third  regiment  was 
crossing  the  river,  and  the  second  brigade  was  entering  the 


10S 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


long  village,  charged  suddenly  in  upon  the  first  brigade, 
with  six  English  squadrons  in  front  and  six  Portuguese 
squadrons  on  the  right  flank.  The  two  deployed  French 
regiments  were  thrown  back  on  the  third,  which  was  jammed 
on  the  bridge.  Hence  they  could  not  get  away  to  reform  and 
rally,  the  road  behind  them  being  entirely  blocked,  while 
the  second  brigade  in  the  village  could  not  get  to  the  front 
to  give  assistance.  All  that  Latour-Maubourg  could  do 
was  to  dismount  its  leading  regiment  and  occupy  wdth  it  the 
houses  on  each  side  of  the  bridge,  from  which  they  kept 
back  the  victorious  British  by  their  carbine  fire.  Lumley, 
meanwhile,  dealt  with  the  three  routed  regiments  at  his 
leisure,  killing  or  wounding  250  men  and  capturing  80 
prisoners  before  the  disordered  wrecks  succeeded  in  re¬ 
crossing  the  river.  Latour-Maubourg,  warned  by  this  bloody 
check,  showed  for  the  future  no  anxiety  to  press  in  upon 
Beresford’s  cavalry  screen. 

How  not  to  deal  with  an  exactly  similar  situation,  it 
may  be  remarked,  was  shown  on  the  23rd  October  of  the 
following  year,  1812,  by  two  British  brigadiers,  who,  charged 
with  the  covering  of  the  retreat  of  Wellington’s  army  from 
Burgos,  were  holding  a  position  behind  the  bridge  of  Venta 
del  Pozo  or  Villadrigo,  when  the  part  of  the  French  cavalry 
immediately  opposed  to  them,  the  brigade  of  Faverot,  ten 
squadrons  strong,  came  down  to  the  defile.  Faverot,  like 
Latour-Maubourg  at  Usagre,  took  the  hazardous  step  of 
ordering  his  leading  regiment  to  pass  the  bridge  at  a  trot, 
and  form  on  the  other  side.  This  Bock,  the  senior  British 
brigadier,  allowed  it  to  do,  and  was  right  in  so  doing,  for 
the  proper  moment  to  strike  was  when  the  enemy  should 
have  half  or  three-quarters  of  his  men  across  the  bridge, 
and  the  rest  jammed  upon  it.  But  Bock  allowed  the  psycho¬ 
logical  moment  to  pass,  and  did  not  charge  till  the  French 
brigade  had  almost  entirely  crossed,  and  could  put  very 
nearly  equal  numbers  in  line  against  him.  Then,  moving 
too  late,  with  some  squadrons  of  Anson’s  brigade  in  sup¬ 
port,  he  came  to  a  desperate  standing  fight  with  the  enemy, 


Surprise  of  Arroyo  Dos  Molinos  109 


in  which  both  suffered  very  heavily.  But  when  all  the 
British  and  German  Legion  regiments  were  already  engaged, 
the  rearmost  squadrons  of  the  French,  which  had  crossed 
the  bridge  under  cover  of  the  fighting  line,  fell  upon  Bock 
from  the  flank,  and  turned  one  of  his  wings  ;  the  British 
cavalry  had  to  give  way  and  retreat,  till  it  was  covered  by 
the  infantry  of  the  7th  Division.  If  Bock  had  charged 
five  minutes  earlier,  he  would  have  nipped  the  French 
column  in  the  middle,  and  probably  have  destroyed  the 
leading  regiments.  The  French  brigade,  as  it  was,  lost 
18  officers  and  116  men,  Anson  and  Bock  about  200,  among 
whom  were  four  officers  and  70  men  prisoners. 

On  the  whole,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Wellington 
was  a  little  hard  on  his  cavalry.  There  was,  of  course,  con¬ 
siderable  justification  for  his  criticisms.  There  was  a  want 
of  decision  and  intelligence  among  some  of  his  brigadiers, 
and  a  tendency  to  headlong  and  reckless  charging  straight 
ahead  among  many  of  his  regimental  officers.  But  looking 
dispassionately  at  the  cavalry  work  on  both  sides,  it  is  im¬ 
possible  to  say  that  the  French  marshals  were  any  better 
served.  There  is  no  striking  instance  in  the  annals  of  the 
British  campaigns  of  1809-14  of  the  army,  or  even  a  division, 
being  surprised  for  want  of  vigilance  on  the  part  of  its 
cavalry  screen,  while  several  such  can  be  quoted  on  the 
French  side — especially  Ney’s  surprise  at  Foz  d’Arouce  on 
March  15, 1811 — caused  by  his  light  cavalry  under  Lamotte 
having  completely  failed  to  watch  the  roads,  or  the  better- 
known  rout  of  Girard  at  Arroyo  dos  Molinos  later  in  the 
same  year.  On  that  occasion  an  infantry  division,  accom¬ 
panied  by  no  less  than  two  brigades  of  light  cavalry,  was 
attacked  at  dawn  and  dispersed  with  heavy  loss,  owing  to 
the  fact  that  the  cavalry  brigadiers,  Bron  and  Briche,  had 
taken  no  precautions  whatever  to  feel  for  the  enemy.  They, 
like  the  infantry,  were  completely  surprised,  being  caught 
with  the  horses  unsaddled,  and  the  men  dispersed  among 
houses  ;  hence  the  chasseurs  were  taken  prisoners  in  large 
numbers  by  Hill’s  sudden  rush,  one  of  the  brigadiers  and  a 


110 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


cavalry  colonel  being  among  the  2000  unwounded  prisoners 
taken.  There  is  no  such  large-scale  surprise  as  this  among 
all  the  records  of  the  British  cavalry.  The  worst  that  I 
know  were  those  of  a  squadron  of  the  13th  Light  Dragoons 
on  April  6,  1811,  near  Elvas,  and  a  very  similar  one  of  the 
11th  Light  Dragoons  two  months  later,  not  far  from  the 
same  place.  In  the  last  case  the  disaster  is  said  to  have 
happened  because  the  regiment  had  only  just  landed  from 
England  after  long  home-service,  and  the  captain  in 
command  lost  his  head  from  sheer  inexperience.  With 
regard  to  this  I  may  quote  the  following  pregnant  sentence, 
from  the  Diary  of  Tomkinson,  who  wrote  far  the  best 
detailed  account  of  the  life  of  a  cavalry  regiment  during 
those  eventful  years.  “  To  attempt  giving  men  or  officers 
any  idea  in  England  of  outpost  duty  was  considered  absurd, 
and  when  they  came  abroad  they  had  all  to  learn.  The 
fact  was  that  there  was  no  one  to  teach  them.  Sir  Stapleton 
Cotton  (who  afterwards  commanded  the  cavalry  in  Spain) 
once  tried  an  experiment  with  the  14th  and  16th  Light 
Dragoons  near  Woodbridge  in  Suffolk.  In  the  end  he  got 
the  supposed  enemy’s  vedettes  and  his  own  all  facing  the 
same  way.  In  England  I  never  saw  nor  heard  of  cavalry 
taught  to  charge,  disperse,  and  reform,  which  of  all  things, 
before  an  enemy,  is  most  essential.  Inclining  in  line  right 
or  left  is  very  useful,  and  that  was  scarcely  ever  practised.” 
He  adds  in  1819  :  “  On  return  to  English  duty,  after  the 
peace,  we  all  continued  the  old  system,  each  regiment 
estimating  its  merit  by  mere  celerity  of  movement.  Not 
one  idea  suggested  by  our  war  experience  was  remembered, 
and  after  five  years  we  shall  have  to  commence  all  over 
again,  if  we  are  sent  abroad.” 

In  short,  the  proper  work  of  cavalry,  apart  from  mere 
charging,  had  to  be  learnt  on  Spanish  soil  when  any  regiment 
landed.  But  it  was  in  the  end  picked  up  by  the  better 
corps,  and  on  the  whole  the  outpost  and  reconnaissance  work 
of  the  Peninsular  Army  seem  to  have  been  well  done,  though 
some  regiments  had  a  better  reputation  than  others.  Much 


Wellington’s  Cavalry  Tactics 


111 


of  the  work  of  this  kind  speaks  for  itself.  The  most  admir¬ 
able  achievement  during  the  war  was  undoubtedly  that  of 
the  1st  Hussars  of  the  K.G.L.,  who,  assisted  afterwards  by 
the  14th  and  lGth  Light  Dragoons,  kept  for  four  months 
(March  to  May,  1810)  the  line  of  the  Agueda  and  Azava, 
40  miles  long,  against  a  fourfold  strength  of  French  cavalry, 
without  once  letting  a  hostile  reconnaissance  through, 
losing  a  picket  or  even  a  vedette,  or  sending  a  piece  of  false 
information  back  to  General  Craufurd,  whose  front  they 
were  covering. 

Allusion  has  been  made  in  the  opening  words  of  this 
chapter  to  Wellington’s  memorandum  for  the  tactical 
management  of  cavalry.  It  was  only  issued  after  Waterloo, 
in  the  form  of  “Instructions  to  Officers  commanding  Brigades 
of  Cavalry  in  the  Army  of  Occupation,”  but,  no  doubt, 
represents  the  tactics  which  he  had  evolved  from  his 
Peninsular  experience.*  Too  long  to  give  in  entirety,  it  is 
worth  analysing.  The  heads  run  as  follows  : — 

(1)  A  reserve  must  always  be  kept,  to  improve  a  success, 
or  to  cover  an  unsuccessful  charge.  This  reserve  should 
not  be  less  than  half  the  total  number  of  sabres,  and  may 
occasionally  be  as  much  as  two-thirds  of  it. 

(2)  Normally  a  cavalry  force  should  form  in  three 
lines  :  the  first  and  second  lines  should  be  deployed,  the 
reserve  may  be  in  column,  but  so  formed  as  to  be  easily 
changed  into  line. 

(3)  The  second  line  should  be  400  or  500  yards  from  the 
first,  the  reserve  a  similar  distance  from  the  second  line,  if 
cavalry  is  about  to  act  against  cavalry.  This  is  found  not 
too  great  a  distance  to  prevent  the  rear  lines  from  improving 
an  advantage  gained  by  the  front  line,  nor  too  little  to 
prevent  a  defeated  front  line  from  passing  between  the 
intervals  of  its  supports  without  disordering  them. 

(4)  When,  however,  cavalry  is  charging  infantry,  the 
second  line  should  be  only  200  yards  behind  the  first,  the 
object  being  that  it  should  be  able  to  deliver  its  charge 

*  General  Orders  (collected  volume),  pp.  481,  482. 


112 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


without  delay,  against  a  battalion  which  has  spent  its 
fire  against  the  first  line,  and  will  not  be  prepared  for  a 
second  charge  pushed  in  rapid  succession  to  the  first. 

(5)  When  the  first  line  delivers  its  attack  at  a  gallop,  the 
supports  must  follow  at  a  walk  only,  lest  they  be  carried 
forward  by  the  rush,  and  get  mingled  with  the  line  in 
front  at  the  onset.  For  order  in  the  supports  must  be 
rigidly  kept — they  are  useless  if  they  have  got  into  con¬ 
fusion,  when  they  are  wanted  to  sustain  and  cover  a  checked 
first  line. 

A  note  as  to  horses  may  finish  our  observations  on  the 
cavalry  side  of  Wellington’s  tactics.  In  countless  places, 
in  diaries  no  less  than  dispatches,  we  find  the  complaint 
that  the  trooper  of  1810  was,  when  not  well  looked  after  by 
his  officers,  a  bad  horse-master — careless  as  to  feeding  his 
mount,  and  still  more  so  as  to  saddle -galls  and  such  like. 

It  is  often  remarked  that  the  one  German  light  cavalry 
regiment  in  the  original  Peninsular  Army,  the  1st  Hussars 
of  the  King’s  German  Legion,  set  an  example  which  some 
other  regiments  might  have  copied  with  advantage,  being 
far  more  conscientious  and  considerate  to  their  beasts.  It 
is  interesting  to  find  that  the  French  cavalry  reports  have 
exactly  the  same  complaints,  and  the  number  of  dismounted 
men  shown  in  French  regimental  states  as  a  consequence  of 
sick  horses  was  as  great  as  our  own.  Several  times  I  have 
found  the  report  that  when  a  considerable  number  of  French 
cavalry  had  been  captured,  quite  a  small  proportion  of 
their  horses  could  be  turned  over  to  serve  as  remounts  for  ^ 
their  captors,  because  of  the  abominable  condition  in  which^ 
they  were  found.  The  fact  was  that  the  climate  and  the 
food  seem  to  have  been  equally  deleterious  to  the  English 
and  French  horses  :  a  diet  of  chopped  straw  and  green 
maize — often  all  that  could  be  got — was  deadly  to  horses 
accustomed  to  stable  diet  in  England  or  France.  •  Welling-. ' 
ton  sometimes  actually  imported  hay  and  oats  from 
England  ;  but  they  could  not  be  got  far  up  country,  and 
only  served  for  regiments  that  chanced  to  be  put  into  winter 


Wellington’s  Artillery  Tactics  113 


quarters  near  the  sea.  Practically  all  the  remounts  came 
from  England — the  Portuguese  and  Spanish  horses  having 
been  tried  and  found  wanting  many  times.  In  1808  the 
20th  Light  Dragoons  were  embarked  without  horses,  being 
ordered  to  mount  themselves  in  Portugal ;  but  the  experi¬ 
ment  failed  wholly. 

Only  a  short  note  is  required  as  to  Wellington’s  use  of 
artillery.  In  his  early  years  of  command  he  was  almost  as 
weak  in  this  arm  as  in  cavalry.  There  was  not  one  British 
battery  per  division  available  in  1809.  But  the  Portuguese 
artillery  being  numerous,  and  ere  long  very  efficient,  was 
largely  used  to  supplement  the  British  after  1810.  Yet 
even  when  it  had  become  proportioned  to  the  number  of  his 
whole  army,  the  Duke  did  not  use  it  in  the  style  of  Bonaparte. 
He  never  worked  with  enormous  masses  of  guns  manoeuvr¬ 
ing  in  front  line,  and  supporting  an  attack,  such  as  the 
Emperor  used.  Only  at  Bussaco,  Vittoria,  and  Waterloo 
do  we  find  anything  like  a  concentration  of  many  batteries 
to  play  an  important  part  in  the  fine  of  battle.  Usually  the 
Duke  preferred  to  work  with  small  units — individual 
batteries — placed  in  well-chosen  spots,  and  often  kept 
concealed  till  the  critical  moment.  They  were  dotted 
along  the  front  of  the  position  rather  than  massed,  and  in 
most  cases  must  be  regarded  as  valuable  support  for  the 
infantry  that  was  to  win  the  battle,  rather  than  as  an  arm 
intended  to  work  for  its  independent  aims  and  to  take  a 
special  part  in  war.  Of  several  of  Napoleon’s  victories  we 
may  say  that  they  were  artilleryman’s  battles ;  nothing  of 
the  kind  can  be  predicated  of  any  of  Wellington’s  triumphs, 
though  the  guns  were  always  well  placed,  and  most  usefully 
employed,  as  witness  Bussaco,  Fuentes  de  Onoro,  and 
Waterloo. 

As  to  Wellington’s  use  of  siege  artillery,  we  must  speak 
in  a  later  chapter.*  It  was,  through  no  fault  of  his  own, 
the  weakest  point  in  his  army:  indeed  till  1811  he  never 
had  a  British  battering  train,  and  in  the  early  sieges  of 
*  See  Chapter  XVIII.,  “A  note  on  Sieges.” 

I 


114 


Cavalry  and  Artillery 


Badajoz  he  worked  in  forma  pauperis,  with  improvised 
material,  mainly  Portuguese,  and  very  deficient  in  quality. 
The  record  is  not  a  cheerful  one  ;  but  it  must  be  said  that 
the  home  authorities,  and  not  Wellington,  were  the  re¬ 
sponsible  parties  for  any  checks  that  were  suffered.  A  great 
general  who  is  not  an  artillery  or  engineering  specialist 
must  trust  to  his  scientific  officers,  and  certainly  cannot  be 
made  responsible  for  shortage  of  men  and  material  due  to 
the  parsimony  of  his  masters  at  home. 

So  much  for  the  great  Duke’s  tactics.  We  shall  presently 
be  investigating  his  system  of  military  organization — the 
inner  machinery  of  his  army.  But  before  dealing  with  it, 
we  shall  have  to  spare  some  attention  for  his  greater 
lieutenants,  whose  individualities  had  an  important  share 
in  the  management  of  his  army. 


CHAPTER  VI 


Wellington’s  lieutenants — hill,  beresford, 

GRAHAM 

There  can  be  no  stronger  contrast  than  that  between  the 
impression  which  the  Iron  Duke  left  on  his  old  followers, 
and  that  produced  by  his  trusted  and  most  responsible 
lieutenant,  Sir  Rowland  Hill.  Hill  was  blessed  and  kindly 
remembered  wherever  he  went.  He  was  a  man  brimming 
over  with  the  milk  of  human  kindness,  and  the  mention 
of  him  in  any  diary  is  generally  accompanied  by  some 
anecdote  of  an  act  of  thoughtful  consideration,  some 
friendly  word,  or  piece  of  unpremeditated,  often  homely 
charity.  A  wounded  officer  from  Albuera,  Avho  is  dragging 
himself  painfully  back  to  Lisbon,  reports  himself  to  Hill 
as  he  passes  his  headquarters.  Next  morning  “  the  general 
himself  attended  me  out  on  my  road,  to  give  me  at  parting 
a  basket  with  tea,  sugar,  bread,  butter,  and  a  large  venison 
pasty.”  *  A  grateful  sergeant,  who  bore  a  letter  to  Hill  in 
1813,  remembers  how  he  expected  nothing  but  a  nod  and  an 
answ'er  from  such  a  great  man,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that 
the  general  ordered  his  servant  to  give  the  messenger  a 
supper,  arranged  for  his  billet  that  night,  and  next  morn 
had  his  haversack  stuffed  with  bread  and  meat,  presented 
him  with  a  dollar,  and  advised  him  where  to  sleep  on  his 
return  journey.!  He  would  give  an  exhausted  private  a 
drink  from  the  can  that  had  just  been  brought  for  his 

*  See  the  Diary  of  Major  Brooke,  in  Blackwood  for  1908,  p.  448, 
which  I  edited. 

t  Memoirs  of  Sergeant  Donaldson  (94 th),  ii.  p.  217,  and  cf.  for  a 
similar  story,  Rifleman  Harris,  pp.  30,  31. 


116 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


personal  use,  or  find  time  to  bestow  a  piece  of  friendly  advice 
on  an  unknown  subaltern.  This  simple,  pious,  considerate 
old  officer,  whose  later  portraits  show  a  decided  resemblance 
to  Mr.  Pickwick,  was  known  everywhere  among  the  rank 
and  file  as  “  Daddy  Hill.”  An  officer  of  the  2nd  Division 
sums  up  his  character  in  a  well-written  letter  as  follows  *  : 
“  The  foundation  of  all  his  popularity  with  the  troops  was 
his  sterling  worth  and  heroic  spirit,  but  his  popularity  was 
strengthened  and  increased  as  soon  as  he  was  personally 
known.  He  was  the  very  picture  of  an  English  country 
gentleman  :  to  the  soldiers  who  came  from  the  rural  districts 
of  old  England  he  represented  home  ;  his  fresh  complexion, 
placid  face,  kind  eyes,  kind  voice,  the  absence  of  all  parade 
or  noise  in  his  maimer  delighted  them.  The  displeasure  of 
Sir  Rowland  wras  worse  to  them  than  the  loudest  anger  of 
other  generals.  His  attention  to  all  their  wants  and  com¬ 
forts,  his  visits  to  the  sick  in  hospital,  his  vigilant  protection 
of  the  poor  peasantry,  his  just  severity  to  marauders,  his 
generous  treatment  of  such  French  prisoners  and  wounded 
as  fell  into  his  hands,  made  for  him  a  warm  place  in  the  hearts 
of  his  soldiery  ;  and  where’er  the  survivors  of  that  army 
are  now  scattered,  assuredly  Hill’s  name  and  image  are 
dearly  cherished  still.” 

The  description  sounds  like  that  of  a  benevolent  old 
squire,  rather  than  that  of  a  distinguished  lieutenant- 
general.  Nevertheless,  Rowland  Hill  was  a  very  great 
man  of  war.  Wellington  liked  him  as  a  subordinate 
because  of  his  extraordinary  punctuality  in  obedience,  and 
the  entire  absence  in  him  of  that  restless  personal  ambition 
which  makes  many  able  men  think  more  of  opportunities 
for  distinguishing  themselves  than  of  exact  performance 
of  the  orders  given  them.  Wherever  Hill  was,  it  was  certain 
that  nothing  would  be  risked,  and  nothing  would  be  for¬ 
gotten.  His  beautiful  combination  of  intelligence  and 
executive  power  more  than  once  brought  relief  to  his  chief’s 
mind  in  a  critical  moment,  most  of  all  on  the  march  to 
*  See  Sidney’s  Life  of  Lord  Hill,  p.  228. 


Merits  of  Sir  Rowland  Hill 


117 


Bussaco  in  September,  1S10,  when  it  was  all-important  to 
Wellington’s  plans  that  his  own  detached  force  under  Hill 
should  join  him  as  soon  as  Massena’s  similar  detached  force 
under  Reynier  should  have  reached  the  main  French 
army.  Hill  executed  a  long  and  difficult  march  over  a 
mountainous  country  with  admirable  speed,  and  was  duly 
up  in  line  on  the  day  before  the  battle  of  Bussaco,  which 
could  not  in  common  prudence  have  been  fought  if  he  had 
been  late. 

This  we  might  have  expected  from  a  man  of  Hill’s 
character  ;  but  what  is  more  surprising  is  that  when  he 
was  trusted — a  thing  that  did  not  often  occur  under  Welling¬ 
ton’s  regime — with  a  command  in  which  he  was  allowed  to 
take  the  offensive  on  his  own  account,  he  displayed  not 
only  a  power  of  organizing,  but  a  fierce  driving  energy 
which  none  of  Wellington’s  more  eager  and  restless  sub¬ 
ordinates  could  have  surpassed.  Speedy  pursuit  of  an 
enemy  on  the  move  was  not  one  of  the  great  Duke’s  cha¬ 
racteristics  ;  he  was  often,  and  not  unjustly,  accused  of 
not  making  the  best  profit  out  of  his  victories.  But  Hill’s 
rapid  following  up  of  Girard,  in  November,  1811,  ending 
with  the  complete  surprise  and  dispersion  or  capture  of 
the  French  force  at  Arroyo  dos  Molinos,  was  a  piece  of  work 
which  for  swift,  continuous  movement,  over  mountain 
roads,  in  vile  rainy  weather,  could  not  have  been  surpassed 
by  the  best  of  Napoleon’s  lieutenants.  Another  blow  of 
the  most  creditable  swiftness  and  daring  was  the  storming 
of  the  forts  of  Almaraz  five  months  later,  when  Hill,  with  a 
light  force,  plunged  right  into  the  middle  of  the  French 
cantonments  and  broke  the  all-important  bridge  by  which 
Soult  and  Marmont  were  wont  to  co-operate.  The  forts 
were  stormed,  the  bridge  thoroughly  destroyed,  and  Hill 
was  off,  and  out  of  reach,  before  the  neighbouring  French 
divisions  were  half  concentrated. 

But  the  crowning  glory  of  Hill’s  Peninsular  service  was 
the  one  general  action  in  which  he  was  fortunate  enough  to 
hold  independent  command.  This  was  at  the  end  of  the 


118 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


war,  the  battle  of  St.  Pierre,  near  Bayonne.  He  was 
forming  the  right  flank  of  Wellington’s  line  when  his 
communication  with  the  main  army  was  cut  off  by  a  rise 
in  the  river  Nive,  which  carried  away  the  bridges  by  which 
he  communicated  with  the  main  host.  Soult,  transferring 
the  bulk  of  his  field  force,  then  in  front  of  Wellington,  by 
means  of  the  bridges  in  Bayonne  town,  fell  upon  Hill  with 
five  divisions.  Hill  had  only  two,  those  which  he  had 
commanded  for  the  last  three  years,  the  2nd  and  Hamilton’s 
(now  Le  Cor’s)  Portuguese.  With  15,000  men  he  fought  a 
defensive  battle  against  30,000  for  the  greater  part  of  the 
short  December  day.  His  reserves  were  used  up,  every 
regiment  had  charged  many  times,  the  losses  were  heavy, 
and  it  seemed  hardly  possible  to  hold  on  against  such  odds. 
But  Hill  did  so,  and  at  last  the  reinforcements  from  the 
other  side  of  the  river  Nive  began  to  appear  in  the  late 
afternoon,  and  Soult  desisted  from  his  attack  and  drew 
off  beaten.  This  was  one  of  the  most  desperate  pieces  of 
fighting  in  the  Peninsular  War,  and  Hill  was  the  soul  of 
the  defence.  He  was  seen  at  every  point  of  danger,  and 
repeatedly  led  up  rallied  regiments  in  person  to  save  what 
seemed  like  a  lost  battle.  Eye-witnesses  speak  of  him  as 
quite  transformed  from  his  ordinary  placidity — a  very 
picture  of  warlike  energy.  He  was  even  heard  to  swear, 
a  thing  so  rare  that  we  are  assured  that  this  lapse  from 
his  accustomed  habits  only  took  place  twice  during  the 
whole  war.  The  first  occasion  was  in  the  desperate  melee 
in  the  night  attack  that  began  the  battle  of  Talavera. 

It  is  clear  that  Hill  was  a  man  capable  of  the  highest 
feats  in  war,  who  might  have  gone  very  far,  if  he  had  been 
given  the  chance  of  a  completely  independent  command. 
But  such  was  not  his  fortune,  and  in  his  last  campaign,  that 
of  Waterloo,  he  was  almost  lost  to  sight,  as  a  corps-com¬ 
mander  whose  troops  were  operating  always  under  the 
immediate  eye  of  Wellington.  He  survived  to  a  good  old 
age,  was  made  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  British  Army 
when  Wellington  gave  up  the  office  on  accepting  the 


PLATE  It. 


Lord  Hill,  G.C. B. 


Lord  Beresford 


119 


Premiership  in  1827,  and  held  it  till  within  a  few  months 
of  his  death  in  1842.  Almost  the  last  recorded  words  of 
the  kindly  old  man  upon  his  death-bed  were,  “  I  have  a 
great  deal  to  be  thankful  for  ;  I  believe  I  have  not  an  enemy 
in  the  world.”  And  this  was  literally  true  :  to  know 
“  Daddy  Hill  ”  was  to  love  him. 

The  other  lieutenant  to  whom  Wellington  repeatedly 
entrusted  a  semi-independent  command  was  one  who  was 
neither  so  blameless  nor  so  capable  as  Rowland  Hill.  Yet 
William  Carr  Beresford  was  by  no  means  to  be  despised 
as  a  soldier.  The  illegitimate  son  of  a  great  Irish  peer,  he 
was  put  into  a  marching  regiment  at  seventeen,  and  saw 
an  immense  amount  of  service  even  for  those  stirring  days 
of  the  Revolutionary  War,  when  a  British  officer  was  liable 
to  be  sent  to  any  of  the  four  continents  in  rapid  succession. 
This  was  literally  the  case  with  Beresford,  who  was  engaged 
in  India,  Egypt,  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  Buenos  Ayres, 
and  Portugal  in  the  eight  years  between  1800  and  1808. 

When  the  Portuguese  Government  asked  for  a  British 
general  to  reorganize  their  dilapidated  army  in  1809, 
Beresford  was  the  man  selected — partly  because  he  had  the 
reputation  of  being  a  good  disciplinarian,  partly  because  he 
knew  the  Portuguese  tongue,  from  having  garrisoned 
Madeira  for  many  months,  but  mostly  (as  we  are  told) 
because  of  political  influence.  His  father’s  family  had  never 
lost  sight  of  him,  and  he  was  well  “  pushed  ”  by  the  Beres¬ 
ford  clan,  who  were  a  great  power  in  Ireland,  and  had  to  be 
conciliated  by  all  Governments. 

If  this  appointment  to  command  the  Portuguese  Army 
was  a  job,  we  may  say  (with  Gilbert’s  judge)  that  so  far  as 
organization  went,  it  was  “  a  good  job  too.”  For  he 
did  most  eminent  service  in  creating  order  out  of  chaos, 
and  produced  in  the  short  space  of  a  year  a  well-disciplined 
force  that  was  capable  of  taking  a  creditable  part  in  line 
with  the  British  Army,  and  won  well-deserved  encomiums 
from  Wellington  and  every  other  fair  critic  for  the  part 
that  it  took  at  Bussaco,  its  first  engagement.  The  new 


120 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


army  had  not  been  created  without  much  friction  and 
discontent  :  to  clear  out  scores  of  incapable  officers — many 
of  them  fidalgos  with  great  court  influence — to  promote 
young  and  unknown  men  to  their  places,  to  enforce  the 
rigour  of  the  conscription  in  a  land  where  it  existed  in 
theory  but  had  always  been  evaded  in  practice,  gained 
Beresford  immense  unpopularity,  which  he  faced  in  the 
most  stolid  and  unbending  fashion.  At  last  the  Portuguese 
Army  was  up  to  strength,  and  had  learnt  to  obey  as  well 
as  to  fight.  The  teaching  had  been  by  the  most  drastic 
methods  :  Beresford  cashiered  officers,  and  shot  deserters 
or  marauders  in  the  rank  and  file,  with  a  rigid  disregard 
alike  for  personal  and  court  influence,  and  for  public 
opinion,  which  Wellington  himself  could  not  have  surpassed. 
He  was,  indeed,  an  honest,  inflexible,  and  hard-working 
administrator  ;  but  with  this  and  with  a  personal  courage 
that  ran  almost  to  excess  his  capacities  ended.  His  virtue 
in  Wellington’s  eyes  was  that,  after  one  short  tussle  of  wills, 
he  completely  and  very  wisely  submitted  himself  to  be  the 
mere  instrument  of  his  greater  colleague,  and  did  every¬ 
thing  that  he  was  told  to  do,  working  the  Portuguese  army 
to  the  best  effect  as  an  auxiliary  force  to  the  British,  and 
making  no  attempt  to  assert  an  independent  authority. 
Instead  of  being  kept  under  his  hand  in  a  body,  it  was  cut 
up  into  brigades,  each  of  which,  with  few  exceptions,  was 
simply  attached  to  a  British  division. 

It  was  no  doubt  because  Beresford  showed  himself  so 
obedient  and  loyal,  and  exhibited  such  complete  self- 
abnegation,  that  Wellington,  both  in  1809  and  1811,  en¬ 
trusted  him  with  the  command  of  large  detached  forces 
at  a  distance  from  the  main  army.  But  the  marshal  was 
by  no  means  up  to  the  task  entrusted  to  him,'  and  after 
the  unhappy  experiment  of  the  first  siege  of  Badajoz,  and 
the  ill-fought  battle  of  Albuera,  Wellington  removed  him 
from  separate  command,  on  the  excuse  that  more  organizing 
was  needed  at  Lisbon,  and  kept  him  either  there,  or  with  the 
main  army  (where  he  had  no  opportunities  of  separate 


Beresford’s  Limitations 


121 


command)  till  the  last  year  of  the  war.  In  1814  he  was  for 
a  few  weeks  entrusted  with  the  conduct  of  the  expedition 
to  Bordeaux,  but  as  it  was  unopposed  by  the  enemy — and 
was  bound  to  be  so,  as  Wellington  well  knew — this  was 
giving  him  no  great  responsibility.  During  the  three  last 
years  of  the  war  he  was  really  in  a  rather  otiose  and  equivocal 
position,  as  titular  Commander-in-Chief  of  an  army  which 
was  not  treated  as  a  unit,  but  dispersed  abroad  among  the 
British  divisions.  Occasionally  he  was  used  as  a  corps 
commander  under  Wellington’s  own  eye,  as  at  Toulouse, 
where  he  led  the  turning  column  of  the  4th  and  6th  Divisions 
which  broke  down  Soult’s  flank  defences.  For  such  a  task, 
when  hard  fighting  and  obedience  to  orders  was  all  that 
was  needed,  he  was  a  fully  competent  lieutenant.  It  was 
when  thrown  on  his  own  resources  and  forced  to  make 
decisions  of  his  own  that  he  showed  himself  so  much  inferior 
to  his  successor  Hill. 

Beresford  was  a  very  tall  and  stalwart  man  of  herculean 
strength — every  one  knows  of  his  personal  encounter  -with 
a  Polish  lancer  at  Albuera  :  he  parried  the  Pole’s  thrust, 
caught  him  by  the  collar,  and  jerked  him  out  of  his  saddle 
and  under  his  horse’s  feet,  with  one  twist  of  his  powerful 
arm.  His  features  were  singularly  rough-cast  and  irregular, 
and  a  sinister  appearance  was  given  to  his  face  by  a  dis¬ 
coloured  and  useless  left  eye,  which  had  been  injured  in  a 
shooting  accident  when  he  was  quite  a  young  man.  The 
glare  of  this  injured  optic  is  said  to  have  been  discomposing 
to  culprits  whom  he  had  to  upbraid  and  admonish,  a  task 
which  he  always  executed  with  thoroughness.  He  had 
been  forced  to  trample  on  so  many  misdemeanants,  small 
and  great,  during  his  five  years  in  command  of  the  Portu¬ 
guese  army,  that  he  enjoyed  a  very  general  unpopularity. 
But  I  have  never  found  any  case  in  which  he  can  be  accused 
of  injustice  or  oppression  ;  the  fact  was  that  he  had  a  great 
many  unsatisfactory  subordinates  to  deal  with.  His  own 
staff  and  the  better  officers  of  the  Portuguese  service  liked 
him  well  enough,  and  the  value  of  his  work  cannot  be  too 


122 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


highly  praised.  He  came  little  into  contact  with  the  British 
part  of  the  army,  but  I  note  that  the  88th,  whom  he  had 
commanded  before  the  war  in  Spain  began,  much  preferred 
him  to  their  later  chief,  Picton,  and  had  a  kindly  memory 
of  him.  There  are  singularly  few  tales  or  anecdotes  con¬ 
nected  with  his  name,  from  which  I  deduce  that  in  British 
military  circles  he  was  neither  much  loved  nor  much 
hated. 

A  far  more  picturesque  figure  is  the  third  of  the  three 
generals  to  whom,  at  one  time  or  another,  Wellington 
committed  the  charge  of  a  detached  corps,  Thomas  Graham 
of  Balgowan,  later  created  Lord  Lynedoch.  I  have  already 
alluded  to  him  in  my  preface,  as  in  one  way  the  most  typical 
figure  of  the  epoch — the  personification  of  all  that  class  of 
Britons  who  took  arms  against  France  when  the  Revolu¬ 
tionary  War  broke  out,  as  a  plain  duty  incumbent  upon 
them  in  days  when  the  country  and  Crown  were  in  danger. 
He  had  seen  the  Jacobin  mob  face  to  face  in  its  frenzy,  in 
a  sufficiently  horrid  fashion.  In  1792  he  had  taken  his 
invalid  wife — the  beautiful  Mrs.  Graham  of  Gainsborough’s 
well-known  picture — to  the  Riviera,  in  the  vain  hope  that 
her  consumption  might  be  stayed.  She  died,  nevertheless, 
and  he  started  home  towards  Scotland  with  her  coffin,  to 
lay  her  in  the  grave  of  his  ancestors.  On  the  way  he  passed 
through  a  town  where  the  crazy  hunt  after  impossible  royalist 
conspiracies  was  in  full  swing.  A  crowd  of  drunken  National 
Guards  were  seized  with  the  idea  that  he  was  an  emissary 
in  disguise,  bearing  arms  to  aristocrats.  The  coffin,  they 
declared,  was  probably  full  of  pistols  and  daggers,  and 
while  the  unhappy  husband  struggled  in  vain  to  hold  them 
off,  they  broke  it  open,  and  exposed  his  wife’s  long-dead 
corpse.  After  this  incident  Thomas  Graham  not  un¬ 
naturally  conceived  the  idea  that  his  one  duty  in  fife  was 
to  shoot  Jacobins.  When  he  had  buried  his  wife  at  Methven 
he  was  ready  for  that  duty,  and  the  war  with  France 
breaking  out  only  five  months  after,  his  opportunity  was 
at  hand.  Though  a  civilian,  a  Whig  member  of  Parliament, 


Early  Career  of  Graham 


123 


and  forty-four  years  of  age,  though  he  had  no  knowledge  of 
military  affairs,  and  had  never  heard  a  shot  fired  in  anger, 
he  went  to  the  front  at  once,  and  fought  through  the  siege 
of  Toulon  as  a  sort  of  volunteer  aide-de-camp  to  Lord 
Mulgrave.  It  is  odd  that  both  Julius  Caesar  and  Oliver 
Cromwell  started  at  this  same  age  as  soldiers.  This  was 
the  first  of  an  endless  series  of  campaigns  against  the 
French  ;  Graham  got  a  quasi-military  status  by  raising 
at  his  own  expense  the  90th  Foot,  or  Perthshire  Volunteers, 
of  which  he  was  in  reward  made  honorary  colonel.  With 
the  curious  rank  of  honorary  colonel — he  never  held  any 
lower — he  went  as  British  attache  to  the  Austrian  Army 
of  Italy,  getting  the  post  because  Englishmen  who  could 
speak  both  German  and  Italian  were  rare.  He  saw  the 
unhappy  campaigns  of  1796-97  under  Beaulieu,  Wiirmser, 
and  the  Archduke  Charles,  being  thus  one  of  the  few 
British  observers  who  witnessed  Bonaparte’s  first  essays 
in  strategy.  Then  he  held  staff  appointments  during  the 
operations  in  Minorca  and  Malta,  and  again  served  with 
the  Austrians  in  Italy  in  1799.  After  much  more  service, 
the  last  of  it  as  British  attache  with  the  army  of  Castanos 
in  Spain,  during  the  Tudela  campaign,  he  was  at  last 
informed  that — all  precedents  notwithstanding — from  an 
honorary  colonelcy  he  was  promoted  to  be  a  major-general 
on  the  regular  establishment,  on  account  of  his  long  and 
distinguished  service.  Down  to  1809  he  had  seen  more 
fighting  than  falls  to  most  men,  without  owning  any 
proper  military  rank,  for  his  colonelcy  of  1794,  which  he 
had  held  for  fifteen  years,  was  only  titular  and  tem¬ 
porary,  and  gave  him  no  regular  rank.  He  had  techni¬ 
cally  never  been  more  than  a  civilian  with  an  honorary 
title  ! 

Yet  in  1810  he  was  entrusted  with  the  important  post 
of  commander  of  the  British  troops  in  Cadiz,  and  com¬ 
menced  to  take  an  important  part  in  the  Peninsular  War. 
He  was  now  sixty-two  years  of  age,  and  would  have  been 
counted  past  service  according  to  eighteenth  century 


124 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


notions.  But  his  iron  frame  gave  no  signs  of  approaching 
decay,  no  fatigue  or  privation  could  tire  him,  and  he  was 
one  of  the  boldest  riders  in  the  army.  His  portrait  shows 
a  man  with  a  regular  oval  face,  a  rather  melancholy  expres¬ 
sion — there  is  a  sad  droop  in  the  eyelids — and  abundant 
white  hair,  worn  rather  long.  His  mouth  is  firm  and 
inflexible,  his  general  expression  very  resolute,  but  a  little 
tired — that  of  a  man  who  has  been  for  nearly  twenty  years 
crusading  against  an  enemy  with  whom  no  peace  must  be 
made,  and  who  does  not  yet  see  the  end  in  sight,  but 
proposes  to  fight  on  till  he  drops.  He  was  a  fine  scholar, 
knew  six  languages,  had  travelled  all  over  Europe,  and 
was  such  a  master  of  his  pen  that  both  his  dispatches  and 
his  private  letters  and  diary  are  among  the  best-written 
and  most  interesting  original  material  that  exists  for  this 
period. 

The  crowning  exploit  of  Graham’s  life  was  the  victory 
which  he  won,  with  every  chance  against  him,  at  Barrosa 
on  March  7th,  1811,  a  wonderful  instance  of  the  triumph 
of  a  quick  eye,  and  a  sudden  resolute  blow  over  long  odds. 
Caught  on  the  march  by  a  sudden  flank  attack  of  Marshal 
Victor,  owing  to  the  imbecile  arrangements  of  the  Spanish 
General  La  Pena,  under  whose  orders  he  was  serving, 
Graham,  instead  of  waiting  to  be  attacked,  which  would 
have  been  fatal,  took  the  offensive  himself.  His  troops 
were  strung  out  on  the  line  of  march  through  a  wood,  and 
there  was  no  time  to  form  a  regular  order  of  battle,  for  the 
French  were  absolutely  rushing  in  upon  him.  Victor 
thought  that  he  had  before  him  an  easy  victory,  over  a 
force  surprised  in  an  impossible  posture.  But  Graham, 
throwing  out  a  strong  line  of  skirmishers  to  hold  back  the 
enemy  for  the  few  necessary  minutes,  aligned  his  men  in 
the  edge  of  the  wood,  without  regard  for  brigade  or  even  for 
battalion  unity,  and  attacked  the  French  with  such  sudden 
swiftness  that  it  was  Victor,  and  not  he,  who  was  really 
surprised.  The  enemy  was  assailed  before  he  had  formed 
any  line  of  battle,  or  deployed  a  single  battalion,  and  was 


Graham  at  Barrosa 


125 


driven  off  the  field  in  an  hour  after  a  most  bloody  fight. 
Graham  led  the  centre  of  his  own  left  brigade  like  a  general 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  riding  ten  yards  ahead  of  the  line  with 
his  plumed  hat  waving  in  his  right  hand,  and  his  white 
hair  streaming  in  the  wind.  This  was  not  the  right  place 
for  a  commanding  officer ;  but  the  moment  was  a 
desperate  one,  and  all  depended  on  the  swiftness  and  sudden¬ 
ness  of  the  stroke  ;  there  was  no  manoeuvring  possible, 
and  no  further  orders  save  to  go  straight  on.  Improvising 
his  battle-order  in  five  minutes,  with  only  5000  men  against 
7000,  and  attacking  rather  uphill,  he  won  a  magnificent 
victory,  which  would  have  ended  in  the  complete  destruc¬ 
tion  of  the  French  if  the  Spaniard  La  Pena  had  moved  to 
his  aid.  But  that  -wretched  officer  remained  halted  with 
his  whole  division  only  two  miles  from  the  field,  and  did 
not  stir  a  man  to  aid  his  colleague. 

A  few  months  after  Barrosa,  Graham  was  moved 
from  Cadiz  to  join  the  main  army  in  Portugal,  at  the  request 
of  Wellington,  who  gave  him  the  command  of  his  left 
wing  during  the  autumn  campaign  of  1811,  and  again 
through  the  whole  of  that  of  1813.  For  the  greater  part  of 
that  of  1812  Graham  was  away  on  sick  leave,  for  the  first  time 
in  his  fife,  his  eyes  having  given  out  from  long  exposure  to 
the  southern  sun.  Unluckily  for  him,  his  promotion  to 
command  a  wing  of  the  grand  army  meant  that  he  was 
generally  under  Wellington’s  own  eye,  with  small  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  acting  for  himself.  But  his  chief  chose  him  to 
take  charge  of  the  most  critical  operation  of  the  Vittoria 
campaign,  the  long  flank  march  through  the  mountains 
of  the  Tras-os-Montes,  which  turned  the  right  wing  of 
the  French  and  forced  them  out  of  position  after  position 
in  a  running  fight  of  200  miles.  Still  outflanking  the  enemy, 
it  was  he  who  cut  in  across  the  high-road  to  France  at  Vit¬ 
toria,  and  forced  the  beaten  army  of  Jourdan  to  retire 
across  by-paths,  with  the  loss  of  all  its  artillery,  train, 
baggage,  and  stores. 

For  the  dramatic  completeness  of  this  splendid  old 


126 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


man's  career,  we  could  have  wished  that  it  had  ended  in 

1813.  But  the  Home  Government,  seeking  for  a  trust¬ 
worthy  officer  to  command  the  expedition  to  Holland  in 
the  following  winter,  chose  Graham  to  conduct  it,  and  his 
last  campaign  was  marred  by  a  disaster.  He  drove,  it  is 
true,  the  remnants  of  the  French  army  out  of  Holland, 
though  his  force  was  small — only  7000  men,  and  formed  of 
raw  second  battalions  hastily  collected  from  English 
garrisons.  But  his  daring  attempt  to  escalade  the  great 
fortress  of  Bergen-op-Zoom,  the  one  stronghold  still  held 
by  the  enemy,  was  a  sad  failure.  Taking  advantage  of  a 
hard  frost,  which  had  made  the  marsh-defences  of  that 
strong  town  useless  for  the  moment,  Graham  planned  a 
midnight  attack  by  four  columns,  of  winch  two  succeeded 
in  crossing  all  obstacles  and  entering  the  place.  But  when 
all  seemed  won,  the  general’s  part  of  the  scheme  having 
succeeded  to  admiration,  the  officers  in  immediate  charge 
of  the  attack  ignored  many  of  their  orders,  dispersed  their 
men  in  unwise  petty  enterprises,  and  finally  were  attacked 
and  driven  out  of  the  town  piecemeal  by  the  rallied 
garrison.  The  loss  was  terrible,  fully  2000  men,  of  whom 
half  were  prisoners.  But  the  bold  conception  of  the 
enterprise  rather  than  its  failure  should  be  put  down 
to  Graham’s  account.  The  mismanagement  by  his 
subordinates  was  incredible.  Wellington,  looking  over 
the  fortress  a  year  later,  is  said  to  have  observed 
that  it  must  have  been  extremely  difficult  to  get  in. 
“  But,”  he  added,  “  wffien  once  in,  I  wonder  how  the 
devil  they  ever  suffered  themselves  to  be  beaten  out 
again.” 

Graham’s  last  campaign  was  marred  by  this  check. 
But,  in  the  general  distribution  of  rewards  at  the  peace  of 

1814,  he  was  given  a  peerage,  by  the  title  of  LordLynedoch, 
and  shared  in  the  other  honours  of  the  Peninsular  Army. 
Though  sixty -six  years  old  when  the  war  ended,  he  survived, 
till  1843,  when  he  had  reached  the  patriarchal  age  of  ninety- 
six.  He  did  a  good  service  to  his  old  comrades  by  founding 


PI. ATE  III. 


General  Thomas  Graham,  Baron  Lynedoch,  G.C. B. ,  G.C. M.G. 

From  the  picture  by  Sir  George  llayter. 


Graham  and  his  Admirers 


127 


the  United  Service  Club,  which  he  originally  designed  as  a 
place  of  rendezvous  for  old  Peninsular  officers,  of  whom  he 
had  noticed  that  many  were  lonely  men  without  family 
ties,  like  himself,  while  others,  stranded  in  London  for  a 
few  days,  had  no  central  spot  where  they  could  count  on 
meeting  old  friends.* * * §  His  portrait  hangs,  as  is  right,  in 
the  most  prominent  place  in  the  largest  room  of  the  insti¬ 
tution  which  he  founded. 

I  have  never  found  one  unkindly  word  about  General 
Graham,  in  the  numerous  diaries  and  autobiographies  of 
the  officers  and  men  who  served  under  him.  All  comment 
on  his  stately  presence,  his  thoughtful  courtesy,  and  his 
unfailing  justice  and  benevolence.  “  I  may  truly  say  he 
lives  in  their  affections  ;  they  not  only  looked  up  to  him 
with  confidence  as  their  commander,  but  they  esteemed  and 
respected  him  as  their  firm  friend  and  protector,  which, 
indeed,  he  always  showed  himself  to  be.”  f  “  What  could 
not  Britons  do,  when  led  by  such  a  chief  ?  ”  asks  another.^ 
I  might  make  a  considerable  list  of  the  names  of  British 
officers  who  relate  their  personal  obligation  to  his  kind¬ 
ness  ;  §  but  perhaps  the  most  convincing  evidence  of  all  is 
that  of  the  French  Colonel  Vigo-Roussillon,  one  of  the  enemies 
whom  he  captured  at  Barrosa,  who  has  no  words  strong 
enough  to  express  the  delicate  generosity  with  which  lie 
was  treated  while  a  wounded  prisoner  at  Cadiz.  Graham 
came  to  visit  him  on  his  sick  bed,  sent  his  own  physician 
to  attend  him,  and  made  copious  provision  for  his  food  and 
lodging.  For  a  conscientious  hatred  for  French  influence, 
whether  that  of  the  red  Jacobin  republic,  or  that  of  the 

*  He  wanted,  lie  wrote,  “  to  have  a  place  of  meeting  where  they 
can  enjoy  social  intercourse  combined  with  economy,  and  cultivate 
old  acquaintance  formed  on  service.”  Hitherto  “  officers  coming 
to  town  for  a  short  period  were  driven  into  expensive  and  bad 
taverns  and  coffee-houses,  without  a  chance  of  meeting  their  friends 
or  any  good  society.” 

t  Twenty-Jive,  Years  in  the  Rijle  Brigade,  by  Surtees  of  the 
95th. 

$  Caddell  of  the  28th,  p.  99. 

§  Especially  Bunbury,  Dallas,  and  Blakeney. 


128  Wellington’s  Lieutenants 

Napoleonic  despotism,  did  not  prevent  him  from  showing 
his  benevolence  to  individual  Frenchmen  thrown  upon 
his  mercy.* 

*  “  Lo  general  etait  de  haute  stature,”  says  Vigo-Roussillon  : 
“  il  avait  les  cheveux  tous  blancs,  et  etait  encore  alerte  et  tres  vif, 
quoiqu’il  avait  soixante  ans.  Sa  physionomie  noble  et  ouverte 
m’avait  inspire  le  respect,  meme  sur  le  champ  de  bataille.” — Revue 
dcs  deux  Mondes,  August,  1891. 


CHAPTER  VII 


Wellington’s  lieutenants — picton,  craufurd, 

AND  OTHERS 

If  Graham  had  no  enemies,  and  was  loved  by  every  one 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  the  same  cannot  be  said  of 
the  two  distinguished  officers  with  whom  I  have  next  to 
deal,  General  Robert  Craufurd  and  Sir  Thomas  Picton. 
They  were  both  men  of  mark,  Craufurd  even  more  so  than 
Picton  ;  they  both  fell  in  action  at  the  moment  of  victory  ; 
they  were  both  employed  by  Wellington  for  the  most 
responsible  services,  and  he  owed  much  to  their  admirable 
executive  powers  ;  but  both  of  them  were  occasionally 
out  of  his  good  graces.  Each  of  them  had  many  admiring 
friends  and  many  bitter  enemies,  whose  reasons  for  liking 
and  disliking  them  it  is  not  hard  to  discover.  Both  of 
them  were  to  a  certain  extent  embittered  and  disappointed 
men,  who  thought  that  their  work  had  never  received 
adequate  recognition,  a  view  for  which  there  was  consider¬ 
able  justification.  In  other  respects  they  were  wholly 
unlike  ;  their  characters  differed  fundamentally,  so  much 
so  that  when  they  met  it  was  not  unfrequently  to  clash  and 
quarrel. 

Picton,  a  Welsh  country  gentleman  by  birth,  was  a 
typical  eighteenth  century  soldier,  who  had  (after  the  old 
fashion)  entered  the  army  at  thirteen  years  of  age,  and  had 
gone  on  foreign  service  at  fifteen.  His  manners,  we  gather, 
were  those  of  the  barrack-room  ;  he  was  a  hard  drinking, 
hard  swearing,  rough-and-ready  customer.  Wellington, 
who  was  not  squeamish,  called  him  “  a  rough,  foul-mouthed 

K 


130 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


devil  as  ever  lived,*  but  he  always  behaved  extremely 
well  on  sendee.”  The  notorious  Duke  of  Queensberry, 
“  Old  Q,”  was  his  friend  and  admirer,  and  left  him  a  good 
legacy  of  £5000  in  his  will.  Old  Q’s  model  heroes  were  not 
of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  type.  One  of  the  strongest 
impressions  left  on  one’s  mind  by  the  diaries  of  those  who 
served  under  him  is  that  of  his  astounding  power  of  maledic¬ 
tion.  Kincaid’s  account  of  the  sack  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo  is 
dominated  by  “  the  voice  of  Sir  Thomas  Picton,  with  the 
power  of  twenty  trumpets  proclaiming  damnation  to  all 
and  sundry.”  f  But  if  he  was  destitute  of  all  the  graces 
and  some  of  the  virtues,  Picton  was  a  very  fine  soldier, 
with  a  quick  eye,  unlimited  self-confidence,  and  the  courage 
of  ten  bulldogs.  He  had,  when  once  the  Revolutionary 
War  commenced,  made  his  way  to  the  front  with  great 
rapidity.  A  captain  in  1794,  he  had  become  a  brigadier- 
general  by  1799,  and  his  promotion  had  been  won  by  un¬ 
deniable  good  service.  For  his  ultimate  misfortune,  he 
was  made  in  1797  governor  of  the  newly  conquered  Spanish 
island  of  Trinidad  in  the  West  Indies,  while  still  only  a 
colonel.  This  was  the  beginning  of  his  troubles  ;  the  post 
was  lucrative,  dangerous,  and  difficult.  The  garrison  was 
insufficient,  and  the  island  was  swarming  with  disbanded 
Spanish  soldiers,  runaway  negro  slaves,  French  adventurers, 
and  privateers  and  pirates  of  all  nations  from  the  Spanish 
Main.  Picton  had  to  create  order  from  chaos,  and  then  to 
keep  it  up  ;  his  methods  were  drastic  :  the  lash  and  the 
pillory,  the  branding-irons,  and,  where  necessary,  military 
execution.  It  does  not  appear  on  impartial  examination 
that  he  ever  showed  himself  self-seeking,  partial,  or  corrupt 
in  his  administration  ;  he  merely  tried,  in  his  own  rough 
way,  to  dragoon  into  order  a  very  unruly  and  lawless 
community.  The  majority  of  the  better  classes  approved 
his  rule,  which,  as  one  of  them  said,  “  was  of  the  sort 
required  by  the  colony  ”  where  a  governor  “  had  to  make 

* '-Stanhope’s  Conversations  with  Wellington,  p.  69. 

fq Kincaid ,  p.  116. 


Picton  in  Trinidad 


131 


himself  feared  as  well  as  beloved.”  Naturally  he  made 
many  enemies,  white,  black,  and  brown,  English  and 
Spanish,  adventurers  and  officials.  They  kept  up  a  rain 
of  petitions  against  him  at  the  Colonial  Office,  in  which  he 
was  represented  as  a  sort  of  Nero.  The  most  acrid  and 
ingenious  of  them,  a  Colonel  Fullarton,  succeeded  in  finding 
a  method  of  attack  which  was  certain  to  have  a  great 
vogue  when  tried  in  England.  The  old  Spanish  law  still 
ran  in  Trinidad,  and  under  it  various  forms  of  durance  and 
torture  were  permitted  against  suspected  persons  under 
arrest.  A  case  had  happened  in  which  a  mulatto  girl,  who 
had  been  concerned  in  stealing  2000  dollars  from  a  Spanish 
tobacco  merchant,  was  put  to  the  barbarous  punishment 
of  picketing  (standing  with  the  heels  on  a  stake)  by  the  local 
magistrates,  to  make  her  confess  who  had  taken  the  money, 
and  where  it  was  hidden.  After  a  few  minutes  she  admitted 
that  her  lover  had  stolen  it,  with  her  aid  and  consent  ; 
and  this  was  proved  to  be  the  fact.  Thus  under  Picton’s 
rule,  and  (as  it  turned  out)  with  his  knowledge,  a  woman 
had  been  put  to  the  torture,  though  the  torture  was  slight 
and  the  woman  guilty. 

Picton,  on  returning  to  England,  was  therefore  accused 
by  Colonel  Fullarton  of  many  tyrannical  acts,  but,  above 
all,  of  having  put  a  woman  to  the  torture  in  order  to  extract 
a  confession,  a  thing  abhorrent  alike  to  the  laws  of  England 
and  to  the  common  sentiments  of  humanity.  There  fol¬ 
lowed  a  long  political  trial,  (for  it  became  a  matter  of  Whig 
and  Tory  partizanship),  in  which  the  Government  finally 
dropped  the  prosecution,  because  it  was  amply  proved  that 
Spanish,  not  English,  law  was  running  in  Trinidad  in  1801, 
since  the  island  had  not  been  annexed  till  the  peace  of 
Amiens  in  the  following  year,  and  that  the  governor  had 
simply  allowed  the  local  magistrates  to  act  according  to 
their  usual  practice.  The  other  charges  all  fell  through. 

Nevertheless,  the  mud  stuck,  as  Fullarton  had  intended, 
and  Picton  was  generally  remembered  as  the  man  who  had 
permitted  a  woman  to  be  tortured.  The  trial  had  dragged 


132 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


over  several  years,  and  had  been  most  costly  to  the  accused. 
Since  there  had  been  no  verdict,  owing  to  the  prosecution 
having  simply  been  dropped,  he  had  not  even  the  satisfac¬ 
tion  of  being  able  to  say  that  he  had  been  acquitted  by  a 
jury  of  his  countrymen.  There  was  a  sort  of  slur,  however 
unjust,  upon  his  name. 

It  therefore  argued  considerable  independence  and  dis¬ 
regard  of  public  opinion  on  the  part  of  Wellington,  when 
he  wrote  home  to  ask  that  Picton  might  be  sent  out  to  him 
to  command  a  division,*  purely  on  his  military  record  as  a 
hard  fighter.  The  general  came  out  to  Portugal  with  a 
name  unfavourably  known,  and  to  colleagues  and  sub¬ 
ordinates  who  were  prepared  to  view  him  with  a  critical 
eye.  “  It  is  impossible  to  deny,”  writes  an  officer  who 
served  under  him,  “  that  a  very  strong  dislike  towards  the 
general  was  prevalent.  His  conduct  in  the  island  of 
Trinidad  .  .  .  had  impressed  all  ranks  with  an  unfavourable 
opinion  of  the  man.  His  first  appearance  was  looked  for 
with  no  httle  anxiety.  When  he  reached  the  ground, 
accompanied  by  his  staff,  every  eye  was  turned  towards 
him,  and  his  appearance  and  demeanour  were  closely 
observed.  He  looked  to  be  a  man  between  fifty  and  sixty, 
and  I  never  saw  a  more  perfect  specimen  of  a  splendid- 
looking  soldier.  In  vain  did  those  who  had  set  him  down 
as  a  cruel  tyrant  seek  to  find  out  such  a  delineation  in  his 
countenance.  On  the  contrary,  there  was  a  manly  open 
frankness  in  his  appearance  that  gave  a  flat  contradiction 
to  the  slander.  And  in  truth  Picton  was  not  a  tyrant,  nor 
did  he  ever  act  as  such  during  the  many  years  that  he 
commanded  the  3rd  Division.  But  if  his  countenance  did 
not  depict  him  as  cruel,  there  was  a  sarcastic  severity 
about  it,  and  a  certain  curl  of  the  lip,  that  marked  him  as 
one  who  despised  rather  than  courted  applause.  The 
stern  countenance,  robust  frame,  caustic  speech,  and 
austere  demeanour  told  in  legible  characters  that  he  was 

*  That  he  made  the  request  is  definitely  stated  in  Stanhope’s 
Conversations,  p.  69. 


PlCTON  AND  THE  88TH  FOOT 


133 


one  not  likely  to  say  a  thing  and  then  not  do  as  he  had  said. 
In  a  word,  his  appearance  denoted  him  a  man  of  strong 
mind  and  strong  frame.”  * 

It  was  considered  characteristic  that  he  ended  his  first 
inspection  of  the  division  by  holding  a  drum-head  court- 
martial  on  two  soldiers  who  had  stolen  a  goat,  and  witnessing 
their  punishment.  He  then  rode  up  to  the  regiment  to 
which  the  culprits  belonged,  the  88th,  and  “  in  language 
not  of  that  bearing  which  an  officer  of  his  rank  should  use,” 
said,  “You  are  not  known  in  the  army  by  the  name  of 
Connaught  Rangers,  but  by  the  name  of  Connaught  foot¬ 
pads ,”  with  some  unnecessary  remarks  on  their  country 
and  their  religion. 

This  untoward  incident  was  the  commencement  of  a 
long  feud  between  Picton  and  the  88th,  which  endured  all 
through  the  war,  and  led,  at  the  end  of  it,  to  the  Rangers 
refusing  to  subscribe  to  the  laudatory  address  and  plate 
which  the  rest  of  the  3rd  Division  offered  to  their  general, 
after  nearly  five  years  of  glorious  service.  Yet  the  feud 
was  not  incompatible  with  a  good  deal  of  reluctant  esteem 
on  both  sides.  On  the  morning  after  the  storm  of  Ciudad 
Rodrigo,  in  which  the  Rangers  had  taken  a  most  gallant 
part,  we  are  told  that  some  of  the  men,  more  than  usually 
elated  in  spirits,  called  out  to  their  commander,  “  Well, 
general,  we  gave  you  a  cheer  last  night  :  it’s  your  turn  now.” 
Picton,  smiling,  took  off  his  hat  and  said,  “  Here,  then, 
you  drunken  set  of  brave  rascals,  hurrah  !  And  we’ll  soon 
be  at  Badajoz,”  to  which  scene  of  even  greater  glory  for 
the  3rd  Division  he  did  conduct  them  within  a  fetv  weeks. 

The  considerable  string  of  stories,  true,  half-true,  or 
apocryphal,  which  cling  round  the  name  of  Picton  relate 
in  about  equal  proportions,  on  the  one  hand,  to  his  extreme 
intrepidity  and  coolness  in  action,  and,  on  the  other,  to 
his  vehemence  alike  of  language  and  of  action,  which 
struck  terror  into  the  objects  of  his  wrath.  The  best  of 
the  former  with  which  I  am  acquainted  comes  from  the 
*  Grattan’s  Adventures  with  the  Connaught  Rangers,  p.  1C. 


134 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


same  diarist,  Grattan,  of  the  88th,  whom  I  have  already- 
been  quoting.  It  relates  to  the  day  of  El  Bodon  (September 
25,  1811),  when  the  3rd  Division,  caught  in  a  somewhat 
isolated  position  owing  to  one  of  Wellington’s  few  tactical 
slips,  was  retreating  in  column  across  a  level  upland, 
beset  by  Montbrun  and  three  brigades  of  French  cavalry. 
“  For  six  miles  across  a  perfect  flat,  without  the  slightest 
protection  from  any  incident  of  the  ground,  without 
artillery,  almost  without  cavalry,  did  the  3rd  Division 
continue  its  march.  During  the  whole  time  the  French 
cavalry  never  quitted  us,  and  six  light  guns,  advancing  with 
them  and  taking  the  division  in  flank  and  rear,  poured  in  a 
frightful  fire  of  grape  and  canister.  General  Picton  con¬ 
ducted  himself  with  his  accustomed  coolness.  He  rode  on 
the  left  flank  of  the  column,  and  repeatedly  cautioned  the 
different  battalions  to  mind  the  quarter  distance  and  the 
‘  tellings  off.’  At  last  we  got  within  a  mile  of  our  entrenched 
camp  at  Fuente  Guinaldo,  when  Montbrun,  impatient  lest 
his  prey  should  escape  from  his  grasp,  ordered  his  troopers 
to  bring  up  their  right  shoulders  and  incline  towards  our 
column.  The  movement  was  not  exactly  bringing  up  his 
squadrons  into  line,  but  it  was  the  next  thing  to  it.  They 
were  within  half  pistol-shot  of  us.  Picton  took  off  his  hat, 
and  holding  it  over  his  eyes  as  a  shade  from  the  sun,  looked 
sternly  but  anxiously  at  the  French.  The  clatter  of  the 
horses  and  the  clanking  of  the  scabbards  wrere  so  great,  as 
the  right  squadron  moved  up,  that  many  thought  it  the 
forerunner  of  a  general  charge.  Some  mounted  officer 
called  out,  ‘  Had  we  not  better  form  square  ?  ’  ‘  No,’ 

replied  Picton ;  ‘  it  is  but  a  ruse  to  frighten  us,  and  it  won’t 
do’  In  half  an  hour  more  we  were  safe  within  our 
lines.”  * 

This  was  a  fine  example  of  cool  resolution,  and  ended 
happily  what  had  been  a  very  anxious  hour  for  Wellington. 
But  I  imagine  that  the  occasion  on  which  the  Commander  - 
in-Chief  owed  most  to  the  commander  of  the  3rd  Division 

*  Qrattan,  pp.  116,  117. 


PlCTON  AT  BADAJOZ 


135 


was  the  storm  of  Badajoz.  It  will  be  remembered  that 
on  that  bloody  night  the  main  attack  on  the  breaches  failed 
completely,  despite  of  the  desperate  exertions  of  the  4th 
and  Light  Divisions.  The  attempt  by  escalade  upon  the 
towering  walls  of  the  castle,  which  proved  successful  and 
caused  the  fall  of  the  fortress,  had  not  been  in  Wellington’s 
original  plan,  but  was  suggested  to  him  by  Picton,  who  had 
viewed  the  breaches,  and  had  not  been  convinced  that  they 
could  be  carried.  Picton  pleaded  that  he  might  be 
allowed  to  try  the  castle  with  his  own  division  as  a  sub¬ 
sidiary  operation.*  He  succeeded  triumphantly,  and  so 
saved  the  day.  If  he  had  not  made  his  offer,  the  chance  of 
the  city’s  falling  would  have  been  infinitely  less,  even  though 
a  brigade  of  the  5th  Division  did  succeed  in  entering  Bada¬ 
joz  at  another  point  remote  from  the  fatal  breaches.  Though 
Picton  got  plenty  of  praise  for  his  courage  on  this  night,  it 
was  not  generally  known  that  he  ought  to  have  been  praised 
even  more  for  his  prescience. 

Numberless  instances  of  Picton’s  skill  and  tenacity 
might  be  quoted,  all  through  the  six  years  of  his  service 
under  Wellington.  But  the  anecdote  which  best  illustrates 
Ills  Spartan  courage  is  one  which  belongs  to  the  last  three 
days  of  his  life.  At  Quatre  Bras,  where  his  division  so 
long  held  back  the  vehement  attacks  of  Ney,  he  received  a 
musket  ball  in  his  left  side,  which,  though  it  gave  a  some¬ 
what  glancing  blow  and  did  not  penetrate,  broke  two  of 
his  ribs.  Believing  that  the  battle  would  be  continued 
next  day,  he  resolved  not  to  return  himself  as  wounded, 
lest  the  surgeons  should  insist  on  sending  him  to  the  rear. 
He  roughly  bound  up  the  wound  with  the  assistance  of 
his  soldier  servant,  and  was  on  his  horse  throughout  June 
17,  conducting  the  retreat  of  his  division.  On  the  18th,  as 
every  one  knows,  he  was  killed — shot  through  the  head — 
while  leading  the  decisive  charge  which  beat  d’Erlon’s 
corps  from  the  heights  of  Mont  St.  Jean.  Only  when 

*  See  McCarthy’s  Siege  of  Badajoz,  p.  35,  and  Robinson’s  Life  of 
Picton,  ii.  p.  170. 


136 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


his  body  was  stripped,  to  be  laid  in  the  coffin,  was  it  dis¬ 
covered  that  he  had  gone  into  action  at  Waterloo  with  a 
dangerous,  perhaps  mortal,  wound  two  days  old  upon  him. 
For  his  side  was  so  swollen  and  blackened  around  the 
broken  ribs,  that  the  surgeons  thought  that  the  neglected 
wound  might  very  possibly  have  caused  his  death,  if  he  had 
come  unharmed  through  the  battle  of  June  18. 

Such  virtues  were  not  incompatible  with  grave  faults. 
Picton’s  violent  language  and  reckless  disregard  of  common 
forms  of  propriety  form  the  subject  of  many  tales.  When 
he  thought  that  the  assistant  engineer  who  guided  the  3rd 
Division  at  the  storm  of  Badajoz  had  led  them  astray,  he 
drew  his  sword,  and  with  an  oath  said  that  he  would  cut  the 
blind  fool  down  if  he  had  gone  wrong.  This  we  have  on 
the  first-hand  evidence  of  that  officer,  who  was  fortunately 
able  to  demonstrate  that  the  right  path  had  been  taken.* 
A  better-known  tale  is  that  of  Picton  and  the  commissary, 
a  story  which  has  also  been  attributed  to  Craufurd,  and 
recently  by  Mr.  Fortescue  to  General  Sherbrooke.  The  com¬ 
missary  had  been  ordered,  during  one  of  Wellington’s  long 
marches,  to  have  the  rations  of  the  3rd  Division  ready  at  a 
certain  spot  at  a  certain  hour.  They  were  not  forthcoming, 
but  only  a  series  of  excuses,  to  account  for  their  non-arrival. 
Picton  grimly  pointed  to  a  neighbouring  tree  and  said, 
“  Well,  sir,  if  you  don’t  get  the  rations  for  my  division  to 
the  place  mentioned  by  twelve  o’clock  to-morrow,  I  will 
hang  you  on  it  at  half-past.”  The  commissary  rode 
straight  to  Lord  Wellington  and  complained,  with  much 
injured  dignity,  of  the  general’s  violent  and  ungentlemanly 
language.  His  lordship  coolly  remarked,  “  Oh,  he  said 
that  he’d  hang  you,  did  he  ?  ”  “  Yes,  my  lord.”  “  Well, 

General  Picton  is  a  man  of  his  word.  I  think  you’d  better 
get  the  rations  up  in  time.”  Further  advice  was  un¬ 
necessary  ;  the  rations  were  there  to  the  moment. f  It  is 
odd  to  find  that  many  years  after  Picton’s  death  a  question 

*  McCarthy’s  Siege  of  Badajoz,  p.  41. 

f  Robinson’s  Life  of  Picton,  ii.  p.  390. 


Picton  and  Wellington 


137 


was  asked  in  Parliament,  and  a  controversy  raged  in  the 
newspapers,  as  to  which  of  three  named  commissaries  was 
the  object  of  Picton’s  anger. 

It  would  be  wrong,  however,  to  paint  Picton  as  a  mere 
vial  of  wrath,  foaming  into  ungovernable  rage  in  and  out 
of  season.  When  he  was  angry  he  generally  had  good 
cause  ;  it  was  only  the  over-vehemence  of  his  language 
that  caused  him  to  become  a  centre  of  legends.  Odd  as  it 
may  seem,  the  rank  and  file  did  not  consider  him  a  tyrant  ; 
it  was  acknowledged  that  he  was  very  just,  that  he  never 
punished  Avithout  hearing  the  defence,  that  he  was  capable 
of  pardoning,  that  Avhen  he  hit  hard  he  did  so  not  without 
reason.  A  sergeant  of  the  45th  wrote  on  him  thus  :  “  He 
Avas  strict  sometimes,  especially  about  plunder,  always 
talking  about  hoAV  AATong  it  was  to  plunder  the  poor  people 
because  countries  happened  to  be  at  war.  He  used  to 
flog  the  men  when  they  Avere  found  out ;  but  where  he 
flogged,  many  generals  took  life.  Besides  this,  the  men 
thought  that  he  had  their  welfare  at  heart.  Every  soldier 
in  the  dmsion  kneAV  that  if  he  had  anything  to  complain 
of,  ‘  Old  Picton  ’  would  listen  to  his  story,  and  set  him 
right  if  he  could.  On  the  Avhole,  our  fellows  always  thought 
him  a  kind  general,  in  spite  of  his  strong  language.” 

This  same  sense  of  justice  is  brought  out  in  the  diaries 
of  several  officers,  who  speak  in  feeling  terms  of  his  en¬ 
deavours  to  get  obscure  merit  reAvarcled,  and  to  keep 
doAvn  jobbery  in  promotion,*  or  tyranny  of  senior  officers 
over  their  juniors.  He  AAras  very  accessible,  and  even 
friendly  and  considerate,  to  his  subordinates.  This  famili¬ 
arity,  which  endeared  him  to  subalterns,  was  (as  Ave  have 
already  noticed)  not  agreeable  to  Lord  Wellington.  Their 
intercourse  was  formal  and  not  very  frequent.  Wellington 
once  went  out  of  his  way  to  say  that  it  was  not  true  that  he 
had  ever  had  a  quarrel  Avith  Picton,  or  been  on  anything 
but  good  terms  with  him.  But  while  acknoAAiedging  his 

*  Soo  especially  McCarthy,  quoted  abo\’0,  and  Macpherson  (notes 
in  Robinson,  ii.  pp.  394—397). 


138  Wellington’s  Lieutenants 

services,  he  never  pretended  that  he  had  any  personal  liking 
for  him. 

Picton  always  thought  that  he  suffered  grave  injustice 
at  the  end  of  the  war,  by  not  being  included  in  the  list  of 
five  Peninsular  officers  who  were  made  peers  for  their 
services.  “  If  the  coronet  were  lying  on  the  crown  of  a 
breach,  I  should  have  as  good  a  chance  as  any  of  them,” 
was  his  caustic  remark.  The  explanation  formally  given 
for  his  omission  was  that  all  the  five  generals  honoured, 
Beresford,  Hill,  Graham,  Hope,  and  Stapleton  Cotton, 
had  held  for  some  time  “  distinct  commands,”  and  that 
Picton  had  not.  But  though  this  explanation  held  good 
for  the  first  three,  it  did  not  really  cover  the  cases  of  Hope 
and  Cotton,  whose  independent  commands  had  been  little 
more  than  nominal ;  and  Picton  had  on  several  occasions — 
notably  in  the  Pyrenees — exercised  independent  authority 
in  a  very  similar  way.  The  fact  was  that  he  was  an  un¬ 
popular  man,  and  that  the  Ministry  omitted  him,  while 
Wellington  made  no  effort  to  push  his  claims.  He  showed 
his  displeasure  by  announcing  his  intention  to  retire  from 
the  army  in  1814,  and  would  have  done  so  in  the  next  year, 
if  Napoleon’s  return  from  Elba  had  not  called  him  into  the 
field,  to  die  at  Waterloo. 

To  finish  our  sketch  of  this  curious  and  contradictory 
character,  we  must  mention  that  Picton  was  a  profound 
despiser  of  all  sorts  of  pomp  and  ceremony.  His  dress, 
except  on  gala  days,  was  careless  and  often  unmilitary. 
He  fought  Quatre-Bras,  as  several  witnesses  remarked,  in 
a  tall  beaver  hat,  and  in  the  Vittoria  campaign,  because  he 
was  suffering  from  his  eyes,  wore  a  very  broad-brimmed 
variety  of  the  same  type.  His  aide-de-camps  copied  him, 
as  was  natural,  in  their  disregard  for  appearance,  and  it  is 
said  that  from  their  manners  and  dress  they  were  known 
as  “  the  bear  and  ragged  staff,”  *  a  term  that  has  been 
applied  on  several  more  recent  occasions  to  similar 
parties. 

*  Cole’s  Peninsular  Generals,  ii.  p.  84. 


PLATE  IV. 


General  Sir  Thomas  Picton,  K.C.B, 


General  Robert  Craufurd 


139 


A  very  different  man  from  ISir  Thomas  Picton  was  the 
last  of  the  divisional  generals  whose  character  we  have  to 
deal  with,  Robert  Craufurd.  They  were  both  effective 
weapons  in  the  hands  of  Wellington,  but  Picton’s  efficiency 
was  rather  that  of  the  battering  ram,  while  Craufurd’s 
was  rather  that  of  the  rapier.  Robert  Craufurd,  like 
Picton,  came  to  the  Peninsula  as  rather  a  disappointed 
man,  his  grievance  being  that,  despite  much  brilliant  service, 
he  had  dropped  behind  in  promotion,  and  found  himself  a 
junior  brigadier  general,  when  men  several  years  his  junior, 
like  Hill,  Beresford,  and  Wellington  himself,  were  holding 
posts  of  much  greater  importance.  Craufurd  was  one  of 
our  few  scientific  soldiers  ;  he  had  studied  so  far  back  as 
1782  the  tactics  of  the  army  of  Frederic  the  Great  at  Berlin, 
and  had  translated  into  English  the  official  Prussian  treatise 
on  the  Art  of  War.  His  knowledge  of  German,  which 
none  other  of  Wellington’s  officers  save  Graham  possessed, 
had  caused  him,  in  1794,  to  be  given  the  important  post  of 
military  attache  with  the  Austrian  Army  in  the  Netherlands, 
and  afterwards  on  the  Rhine,  and  he  followed  Coburg  and 
the  Archduke  Charles  for  three  years  through  a  series  of 
campaigns,  in  which  failure  was  much  more  frequent  than 
success.  When  the  war  broke  out  once  more  between 
Austria  and  the  French  republic,  he  was  again  sent  in  1799 
to  serve  with  his  old  friends,  and  accompanied  the  head¬ 
quarters  of  General  Hotze’s  army  in  Switzerland,  till  he  w7as 
called  off  to  share  in  the  Duke  of  York’s  ill-managed  in¬ 
vasion  of  Holland  in  the  end  of  the  same  year.  Like 
Graham,  therefore,  Craufurd  had  the  sorrow7  of  witnessing 
a  long  series  of  disasters,  for  which  he  was  not  in  the  least 
responsible.  As  his  reports  and  dispatches  show7,  he  dis¬ 
charged  his  duty  with  zeal  and  excellent  capacity  ;  but  his 
sarcastic  tongue  and  violent  temper  seem  to  have  stood  in  the 
way  of  his  promotion.  A  major  in  1794,  after  thirteen  years’ 
service,  he  was  still  only  a  lieutenant-colonel  in  1801,  and 
during  these  years  had  seen  numberless  comrades  climb 
over  his  head,  though  he  had  all  the  while  been  discharging 


140 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


important  duties  in  a  fashion  which  won  the  admiration  of 
all  with  whom  he  came  into  personal  contact.  It  looks  as 
if  the  constant  reports  of  disaster,  which  he  had  to  make, 
had  connected  his  name  in  official  circles  with  the  notion 
of  ill-luck.  In  1801,  disappointed  of  an  official  post  in 
Ireland  for  which  he  had  applied,  he  went  on  half-pay, 
and  entered  Parliament  as  member  for  a  pocket-borough 
which  chanced  to  be  in  his  brother’s  gift.*  For  the  next 
five  years  he  was  a  constant  speaker  in  Parliament  on 
military  topics,  and  a  very  bitter  critic  of  the  policy  of 
Pitt,  Dundas,  and  Addington.  His  views  as  to  the  proper 
organization  of  the  British  forces,  in  first  and  second  line, 
for  the  beating  off  of  French  invasion  were  set  forth  at 
vast  length,  and  always  clashed  with  those  of  ministers. 
It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  he  was  in  the  main  right,  and  they 
wrong  ;  he  pleaded  for  the  reduction  of  the  numberless 
ill-disciplined  volunteer  corps,  and  wished  to  see  in  the 
first  line  a  very  large  regular  army  raised  for  short  service, 
and  behind  it  the  second  line,  levied  by  conscription,  as  a 
sort  of  levee  en  masse  trained  for  irregular  fighting,  and  not 
expected  to  manoeuvre  or  to  take  part  in  pitched  battles. 
Craufurd’s  virulent  criticism  was  very  telling,  but  hardly 
likely  to  help  his  promotion  as  a  military  man,  so  long  as 
the  Addington  and  Pitt  ministries  were  in  power.  When, 
however,  Pitt  died,  and  the  Whig  administration  called 
“All  the  Talents”  came  into  power,  the  new  War  Secretary, 
William  Windham,  was  disposed  to  do  everything  possible 
for  Craufurd,  who  was  not  only  his  personal  friend,  but 
often  advised  him  on  matters  of  organization  and  technical 
military  subjects. 

At  last,  after  five  years  spent  in  rather  acrid  parlia¬ 
mentary  criticism,  Craufurd  was  given  an  opportunity  by 
his  friend  Windham  to  see  service  in  a  higher  post  than 
had  ever  before  fallen  to  his  lot.  Though  only  just 

*  His  brother,  Sir  Charles  Craufurd,  had  married  the  Dowager 
Duchess  of  Newcastle,  and  as  the  duke  was  a  minor,  his  mother  and 
her  husband  disposed  of  the  Pelham  pocket-boroughs  and  other 
patronage. 


Craufurd  at  Buenos  Ayres 


141 


promoted  to  a  full  colonelcy,  he  was  given  the  command  of 
a  brigade  of  4000  men,  destined  for  a  distant  expedition. 
This  adventure  was  one  of  the  most  hare-brained  of  the 
many  futile  schemes  of  the  unlucky  cabinet  then  in  power. 
Craufurd  was  to  take  in  hand  nothing  less  than  a  voyage  round 
Cape  Horn,  for  the  conquest  of  Chili  !  He  never  saw  the 
straits  of  Magellan,  however,  for  his  force,  after  it  had  sailed, 
was  distracted  to  form  part  of  the  unhappy  armament 
under  General  Whitelocke,  which  made  the  disastrous 
attack  on  Buenos  Ayres  in  1807.  Placed  in  the  front, 
in  command  of  Whitelocke’s  Light  Brigade,  and  thrust 
forward  into  the  tangle  of  streets  among  which  the  incapable 
general  dispersed  his  troops  in  many  small  columns,  Crau¬ 
furd  fought  his  way  so  far  on  that  he  was  surrounded,  cut 
off  from  the  main  body,  and  compelled  to  capitulate  with 
the  remnants  of  his  men.  Thus  his  first  chance  of  dis¬ 
tinction  in  the  field,  at  the  head  of  a  considerable  force, 
ended  in  absolute  disaster.  He  was  acquitted  of  all  blame 
at  Whitelocke’s  court-martial,  but  the  thought  that  he  was 
remembered  as  the  officer  who  had  surrendered  a  British 
brigade  rankled  in  his  mind,  and  sat  heavy  on  his  soul 
down  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

The  fact  that  he  was  held  blameless,  however,  was 
marked  by  his  appointment  to  the  command  of  a  brigade 
in  the  Peninsular  Army  in  1808.  But  his  usual  ill-luck 
seemed  at  first  to  attend  him.  He  arrived  too  late  for 
Vimeiro ;  when  serving  under  Moore  he  was  detached 
from  the  main  army,  and  did  not  fight  at  Corunna.  In 
the  next  year,  returning  to  serve  under  Wellesley,  he  was 
late  for  Talavera,  though  to  reach  the  battlefield  he 
made  his  well-remembered  march  of  forty-three  miles  in 
twenty-six  hours,  which  Napier,  by  a  slip  of  memory, 
has  converted  into  an  impossible  achievement — a  march 
of  sixty-two  miles  in  that  time,  which  not  even  Craufurd 
and  the  famous  43rd,  52nd,  and  95th  could  have  ac¬ 
complished. 

From  1809  onward  Craufurd  at  last  got  his  chance,  and 


142 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


for  the  greater  part  of  three  years  *  was  in  command  of 
Wellington’s  advance,  his  “  Light  Brigade  ”  of  1809  becoming 
the  “  Light  Division  ”  in  1810.  At  length  he  got  what  Fate 
had  denied  him  in  all  his  earlier  career,  a  post  of  great 
distinction  and  responsibility,  and  a  sight  of  victory  ;  for 
fifteen  years  he  had  been  witnessing  nothing  but  retreats 
and  disasters.  On  his  happy  days,  and  they  were  many, 
Craufurd  was  undoubtedly  the  most  brilliant  lieutenant 
that  Wellington  ever  owned.  Yet  he  was  not  trusted  by 
his  chief  as  Hill,  for  example,  was  trusted,  because  of 
his  occasional  lapses  from  caution,  and  from  the  blind 
obedience  which  his  chief  exacted.  Occasionally  he 
took  risks,  or  ventured  to  modify  the  orders  given 
him — the  faults  of  an  eager  and  ambitious  spirit  in  an  hour 
of  excitement. 

His  achievements  were  great  and  noble.  The  most 
splendid  of  them  was  the  protection  of  the  north-east 
frontier  of  Portugal  throughout  the  whole  spring  and  summer 
of  1810,  when  he  was  set  with  his  own  small  division  and 
two  regiments  of  cavalry  to  lie  out  many  miles  in  front  of 
the  main  army,  and  to  watch  the  assembling  host  of 
Massena,  till  the  moment  when  it  should  make  its  forward 
move  for  serious  invasion.  For  five  months  he  guarded  a 
long  front  against  an  enemy  of  sixfold  force,  without 
allowing  his  line  to  be  pierced,  or  suffering  the  French  to 
gain  any  information  as  to  what  was  going  on  in  his  rear. 
This  was  a  great  feat,  only  accomplished  by  the  most 
complete  and  minute  organization  of  his  very  modest 
resources.  There  were  fifteen  fords  along  the  Agueda, 
the  river  whose  line  he  had  to  keep,  all  of  which  had  to  be 
watched  in  dry  weather,  and  many  even  when  the  stream 
was  high.  The  French  had  3000  cavalry  opposite  him  in 
March  and  April,  5000  in  May  and  June,  the  latter  a  force 
exceeding  in  numbers  the  total  of  his  whole  division. 

*  He  was  absent  on  leave  from  the  winter  of  1810  till  May 
1811,  and  only  just  rejoined  in  time  for  the  battle  of  Fuentes  de 
Ouoro. 


Ceaufurd  and  the  Light  Division  143 


Behind  the  hostile  cavalry  screen  he  knew  that  there  were 
two  full  army  corps,  or  over  40,000  men  ;  and  many 
detachments  of  this  infantry  lay  only  four  or  five  miles  from 
Craufurd’s  outposts,  and  might  attack  him  at  any  moment. 
Yet  he  never  suffered  any  surprise  ;  so  well  were  his  observa¬ 
tion-posts  placed  and  managed,  that  the  least  movement  of 
the  enemy  was  reported  to  him  in  an  incredibly  short 
time.  The  whole  web  of  communications  quivered  at  the 
shghtest  touch,  and  the  Light  Division  was  concentrated 
ready  to  fight  or  to  retreat,  as  prudence  dictated,  long 
before  the  attack  could  develop.  So  wonderfully  had  he 
trained  his  troops  that  any  battalion,  as  Napier  records,  was 
ready  under  arms  within  seven  minutes  from  the  first  alarm 
signal,  and  within  a  quarter  of  an  hour  could  be  in  order  of 
battle  on  its  appointed  post,  with  its  baggage  loaded  and 
assembled  ready  for  departure  at  a  convenient  distance 
to  the  rear. 

As  his  aide-de-camp,  Shaw  Kennedy,  the  historian  of 
this  summer,  writes,  “  To  understand  Craufurd’s  operations 
the  calculation  must  never  be  lost  sight  of,  for  it  was  on 
calculation  that  he  acted  all  along.”  Special  reports  were 
made  of  the  numerous  fords  of  the  Agueda  every  morning, 
and  the  rapidity  of  its  rises  was  periodically  marked. 
Beacons  were  placed  on  conspicuous  heights,  so  as  to 
communicate  information  as  to  the  enemy’s  offensive 
movements.  To  ensure  against  mistakes  in  the  night, 
pointers  were  kept  at  the  stations  of  communication, 
directed  to  the  beacons.  The  cavalry  regiment  at  the 
outposts  was  the  first  Hussars  of  the  King’s  German 
Legion,  a  veteran  corps,  chosen  because  its  officers  were 
considered  superior  in  scouting  power  to  that  of  any  other 
light  cavalry  unit  with  the  army.  Craufurd,  knowing 
German  well,  communicated  with  each  of  its  squadron 
leaders  directly  ;  each  knew  his  own  duty  for  the  front  that 
he  covered,  and  each  worked  out  his  part  admirably.  The 
general  was  untiring,  could  remain  on  horseback  unwearied 
for  almost  any  length  of  time,  and  knew  personally  every 


144  AVellington’s  Lieutenants 

ford,  defile,  and  by-path.  Hence  nothing  was  left  to 
chance.* 

It  was  a  pity  that  Craufurd  ended  this  splendid  piece 
of  service,  which  lasted  over  five  months  of  daily  danger, 
by  fighting  the  unnecessary  “  Combat  of  the  Coa  ”  on 
July  4,  1S10.  Staying  a  day  too  long  beyond  that  stream 
despite  of  Wellington’s  clear  direction  to  retire  the  moment 
i  hat  he  was  hard  pressed,  he  was  suddenly  attacked  by  the 
whole  of  Ney’s  corps,  20,000  men  or  more,  and  forced  over 
the  Coa,  with  loss  which  might  have  been  great  but  for  the 
excellence  of  the  battalions  he  had  trained  and  the  cool- 
headed  tactical  skill  of  his  regimental  officers.  He  held  the 
bridge  of  the  Coa  successfully  when  he  had  crossed  it,  and  lost 
no  more  than  300  men  ;  but  he  had  disobeyed  orders  and 
risked  his  division.  Wellington  was  justly  displeased,  and 
let  his  lieutenant  know  it.  But  he  did  not  rebuke  him  in 
Ills  dispatches,  and  continued  him  in  his  command.  He 
wrote  home  in  a  confidential  letter,  “  You  will  say,  ‘  Why 
not  accuse  Craufurd  ?  ’  I  answer,  ‘  Because  if  I  am  to  be 
hanged  for  it,  I  cannot  accuse  a  man  who  meant  well,  and 
whose  error  was  one  of  judgment,  not  of  intention.’  ” 
But  for  the  future  he  kept  Craufurd  nearer  to  himself,  and 
did  not  place  him  so  far  away  that  he  had  much  chance  of 
trying  strategical  experiments  on  his  own  responsibility. 
Even  so,  there  were  other  occasions  on  which  the  general’s 
proneness  to  think  for  himself  got  him  into  trouble.  One 
was  on  September  25,  1811,  on  the  day  of  the  combat  of 
El  Bodon,  when  Craufurd,  thrown  forward  into  a  hazardous 
position  by  his  chief’s  orders,  was  twelve  hours  late  in 
joining  the  main  army.  He  had  been  told  to  make  a  night 
march,  but  waited  till  dawn,  because  he  was  moving  in 
a  difficult  and  broken  country  full  of  ravines  and  torrents, 
where  he  judged  that  movement  in  the  dark  was  dangerous. 
By  his  delay  the  army  was  concentrated  half  a  day  later 

*  All  this  comes  from  Shaw-Kennedy’s  Diary,  which  is  printed 
at  length  in  a  most  unlikely  place, — the  Appendix  to  Lord  F.  Fitz- 
clarence’s  Manual  of  Outpost  Duties,  a  book  of  the  1840’s. 


Craufurd  and  Wellington 


145 


than  Wellington  intended.  “  1  am  glad  to  see  you  safe,” 
observed  the  Commander-in-Chief  with  some  asperity,  as 
the  Light  Division  filed  into  the  scantily  manned  position 
at  Fuente  Guinaldo.  “  Oh,  I  was  in  no  danger,  I  assure 
you.”  “  But  I  was,  from  your  conduct,”  answered  Wel¬ 
lington.  Whereupon  Craufurd  remarked  to  his  staff,  “  He’s 

d - d  crusty  to-day.”  *  In  this  case  it  must  be  remarked, 

in  justice  to  Craufurd,  that  it  was  his  chief  who  had  placed 
him  in  the  hazardous  position,  not  himself,  and  that  his 
judgment  that  the  night  march  was  impracticable  was  very 
probably  correct.  But  he  had  disobeyed  an  order,  and  it 
was  remembered  against  him  by  the  inflexible  Wellington. 

Against  these  lapses  must  be  set  a  long  career  of  careful 
and  scientific  soldiering,  with  movements  of  brilliant 
manoeuvring,  and  sudden  strokes,  in  which  no  other  Peninsu¬ 
lar  general  could  vie  with  him.  The  repulse  of  Ney’s  corps 
at  Bussaco  was  perhaps  the  most  glorious  exploit  of  Crau¬ 
furd  and  his  Light  Division.  The  way  in  which  the  French 
on  this  occasion  were  detained  and  harassed  by  light 
troops j  and  then,  just  as  they  reached  the  crest  of  the 
position,  charged  and  swept  downhill  by  the  rush  of  a 
much  inferior  force,  launched  at  the  right  moment,  was  a 
beautiful  example  of  tactics.  The  most  astonishing  part 
of  it  was  that,  by  his  careful  choice  of  a  position,  and 
judicious  concealment  of  his  line  till  the  critical  minute, 
Craufurd  beat  his  enemy  with  hardly  any  loss  ;  he  had 
only  177  casualties,  the  French  opposed  to  him  over  1200. 
Yet  there  was  another  feat  which,  though  less  showy,  was 
probably  an  even  greater  example  of  tactical  skill  than  the 
stroke  at  Bussaco.  This  was  the  advance  and  retreat  of 
the  Light  Division  at  Fuentes  de  Onoro  (May  5,  1811), 
when  Craufurd  was  sent  out  of  the  main  British  position 
to  rescue  the  7th  Division,  which  was  cut  off  and  nearly 
surrounded  by  an  overwhelming  force  of  French  cavalry. 
Having  disengaged  the  compromised  division,  Craufurd 

*  Soo  Larpcnt's  Journal,  p.  85,  and  Alox.  Craufurd’s  Life  of 
General  Robert  Craufurd,  pp.  184,  185. 

L 


146 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


had  to  retreat  back  to  the  main  body  with  five  brigades 
of  fine  cavalry,  aided  by  horse  artillery,  surging  round  him 
on  all  sides,  and  seeking  for  an  opportunity  to  burst  in. 
To  retreat  in  square  across  two  miles  of  open  plateau,  very 
well  adapted  for  the  action  of  horsemen,  was  a  delicate 
and  dangerous  task.  Yet  Craufurd  achieved  it  with  perfect 
security,  and  brought  in  his  whole  division  to  Wellington’s 
position  with  a  loss  of  less  than  fifty  men.  As  an  exhibition 
of  nerve  and  skill  it  even  exceeded  Picton’s  retreat  at  El 
Bodon,  for  the  French  horse  on  this  occasion  were  more 
numerous,  and  flushed  with  previous  success,  and  the  Light 
Division  was  a  smaller  body  than  the  3rd  division  by  4000 
men  to  5200.  The  distance  covered,  however,  during  the 
crisis  of  retreat  at  Fuentes  was  much  shorter,  only  two  miles 
to  seven  at  El  Bodon. 

Craufurd  fell  in  action  before  1812  was  many  days  old, 
being  killed  by  a  chance  shot  while  watching  and  directing 
the  storm  of  the  lesser  breach  at  Ciudad  Rodrigo  from  the 
further  side  of  the  glacis  (January  19).  Otherwise  his 
peculiar  talents  would  no  doubt  have  been  exhibited  in 
commanding  the  rear-guard  during  the  retreat  from  Burgos, 
and  the  advance  during  the  campaign  of  Vittoria.  The 
character  of  the  fighting  in  the  Pyrenees  would  also  have 
suited  admirably  his  particular  style  of  management.  He 
was  bitterly  missed  by  his  officers,  Charles  Alten,  his 
successor  in  command  of  the  Light  Division  being  a  general 
of  much  more  pedestrian  quality,*  who  might  never  fail  to 
make  an  attempt  to  obey  Wellington’s  orders  to  the  best 
of  his  ability,  but  could  never  supplement  them  by  any 
improvisation  of  his  own,  of  which  he  was  incapable.  The 
operations  of  the  Light  Division  after  Craufurd’s  death  were 
always  admirable  so  far  as  the  conduct  of  officers  and  men 
went,  but  there  was  no  longer  any  genius  in  the  way  in  which 
they  were  led. 

*  William  Napier  refused  to  subscribe  to  a  testimonial  to  Alten 
at  the  end  of  the  war,  openly  saying  that  he  saw  no  sufficient  merit 
in  him. 


Craufurd ’s  Faults 


147 


Craufurd,  unlike  Hill  or  Graham,  and  like  his  rival 
Picton,  had  many  enemies.  He  was  a  strict  disciplinarian, 
to  his  officers  even  more  than  to  his  men,  and  had  a  quick 
temper  and  a  caustic  tongue.  His  anger  used  to  vent 
itself  not  in  bursts  of  swearing,  such  as  Picton  would  in¬ 
dulge  in,  but  by  well-framed  and  lucid  speeches  of  bitter 
sarcasm,  which  probably  gave  more  offence  than  any 
amount  of  oaths.  Being  a  highly  educated  man,  and  a 
practised  parliamentary  speaker,  he  could  put  an  amount 
of  polished  contempt  into  a  rebuke  which  was  not  easily 
forgotten.  It  was  probably  this  trick  that  made  enemies 
of  the  Napiers,  both  of  whom  speak  very  bitterly  of  him 
in  their  diaries  and  other  writings,  though  William  Napier 
in  his  history  gives  him  the  due  credit  for  his  many  brilliant 
achievements.*  Several  others  of  his  officers  speak  bitterly 
of  his  intellectual  arrogance  ;  one  calls  him  a  “tyrant  ”  ; 
another  says  that  he  never  forgot  a  grudge.  But  he  had 
no  fewer  friends  than  enemies  ;  many  of  the  best  of  his  sub¬ 
ordinates,  like  Shaw  Kennedy  and  Campbell,  loved  him  well, 
and  (what  is  more  surprising)  the  rank  and  file,  on  whom 
his  wrath  often  fell  in  the  form  of  the  lash,  felt  not  only 
confidence  but  enthusiasm  for  him.  The  best  of  all  his 
eulogies  comes  from  a  95th  man,  Rifleman  Harris,  and  is 
well  worth  quoting,  for  its  simple  manliness. 

“  I  do  not  think  I  ever  admired  any  man  who  wore  the 
British  uniform  more  than  I  did  General  Craufurd.  I 
could  fill  a  book  with  descriptions  of  him,  for  I  frequently 
had  my  eye  upon  him  in  the  hurry  of  action.  The  Rifles 
liked  him,  but  they  feared  him,  for  he  could  be  terrible 
when  insubordination  showed  itself  in  the  ranks.  ‘  You 
think  because  you  are  riflemen  that  you  may  do  whatever 
you  think  proper,’  said  he  one  day  to  the  miserable  and 
savage  crew  around  him  on  the  retreat  to  Corunna  ;  ‘  but 

*  For  a  bitter  story  of  how  his  brigadiers,  Barclay  and  Beckwith, 
spoke  of  him,  see  Moore -Smith’s  Life  of  Colborne,  p.  174.  Cf.  too 
p.  35  of  Days  Reminiscences  of  1808—15,  for  an  anecdote  of  Crau¬ 
furd’s  occasional  snubbing  of  his  officers.  Cf.  also  George  Simmond’s 
British  Rifleman,  pp.  26,  27. 


148 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


I’ll  teach  you  the  difference  before  I  have  done  with  you.’ 
I  remember  one  evening  during  that  retreat  he  detected 
two  men  straying  away  from  the  main  body  ;  it  was  in 
an  early  stage  of  that  disastrous  flight,  and  Craufurd  knew 
that  he  must  keep  his  division  together.  He  halted  the 
brigade  with  a  voice  of  thunder,  ordered  a  drum-head 
court-martial  on  the  instant,  and  they  were  sentenced  to 
a  hundred  a-piece.  While  the  hasty  trial  was  taking  place, 
Craufurd,  dismounting  from  his  horse,  stood  in  the  midst, 
looking  stern  and  angry  as  a  worried  bulldog.  He  did  not 
like  retreating,  that  man. 

“  When  the  trial  was  over,  it  was  too  dark  to  inflict 
the  punishment.  He  marched  all  night  on  foot,  and  when 
morning  dawned  his  hair,  beard,  and  eyebrows  were  covered 
with  the  frost ;  we  were  all  in  the  same  condition.  Scarcely 
had  dawn  appeared  when  the  general  called  a  halt,  among 
the  snow  on  the  hills.  Ordering  a  square  to  be  formed,  he 
spoke  to  the  brigade. 

“  ‘  Although  I  shall  obtain  the  good  will  neither  of  the 
officers  nor  of  the  men  here  by  so  doing,  I  am  resolved  to 
punish  those  men  according  to  the  sentence  awarded,  even 
though  the  French  are  at  our  heels.  Begin  with  Daniel 
Ho  wans.’ 

“  The  men  were  brought  out,  and  their  Lieutenant- 
Colonel,  Hamilton  Wade,  at  the  same  time  stepped  forward, 
and  lowering  his  sword,  requested  he  would  forgive  these 
men,  as  they  were  both  of  them  good  soldiers,  who  had 
fought  in  all  the  battles  of  Portugal.  ‘  I  order  you,  sir,’ 
said  the  general,  ‘  to  do  your  duty.  These  men  shall  be 
punished.’  After  seventy-five  lashes,  Craufurd  stopped  the 
flogging.  But  before  he  put  the  brigade  in  motion  again, 
he  gave  us  another  short  address,  pretty  much  after  this 
style — 

“  ‘  I  give  you  all  notice  that  I  shall  halt  the  brigade 
again  the  very  first  moment  I  perceive  any  man  disobeying 
my  orders,  and  try  him  by  court-martial  on  the  spot.’  He 
then  gave  the  word,  and  we  resumed  our  march. 


Craufurd’ s  Severity 


149 


“  Many  who  read  this  may  suppose  that  it  was  a  cruel 
and  unnecessary  severity,  under  the  dreadful  and  harassing 
circumstances  of  that  retreat  :  but  I,  who  was  there,  a 
common  soldier  in  the  regiment  to  which  these  men  belonged, 
say  that  it  was  quite  necessary.  No  man  but  one  formed 
of  stuff  like  General  Craufurd  could  have  saved  the  brigade 
from  perishing  altogether.  If  he  flogged  two,  he  saved 
hundreds  from  death  by  his  management.” 

There  was  a  curious  anecdote  concerning  Craufurd ’s 
funeral  published  in  the  Saturday  Review  lately,*  from  the 
unpublished  reminiscences  of  a  contemporary,  which  illus¬ 
trates  well  enough  the  reverence  with  which  the  Light 
Division  looked  upon  its  old  chief.  One  of  his  strongest 
principles  had  been  that  troops  on  the  march  must  never 
make  a  detour  to  avoid  fordable  streams  or  deep  mud,  nor 
break  their  ranks  to  allow  each  man  to  pick  shallow  water, 
or  hard  stones  among  the  wet.  The  delay  so  caused  was, 
he  held,  such  a  hindrance  to  rapid  movement  that  it  must 
not  be  allowed.  He  had  been  known  to  flog  men  who 
straggled  from  the  ranks  in  the  water,  in  order  to  fill  their 
bottles,  or  to  stoop  down  to  take  a  long  drink. f  He  had 
even  caused  an  officer,  whom  he  caught  evading  a  wetting 
by  riding  pick-a-back  upon  his  soldier-servant,  to  be  set 
down  with  a  splash  in  the  middle  of  a  stream.!  Coming 
back  from  Craufurd’s  funeral,  the  leading  company  of  the 
Light  Division  passed  by  an  excavation  at  the  rear  of  the 
siege  w'orks,  half -filled  by  mud  and  water.  Instead  of 
turning  its  end  to  avoid  the  wet,  the  men  looked  at  the 
inundation,  pulled  themselves  together,  and  marched 
straight  through  it,  with  great  regularity  and  steadiness, 
as  if  they  were  passing  before  a  general  officer  at  a  review. 
The  whole  division  followed  through  the  slush.  It  seemed 
to  them  that  the  best  testimony  to  their  old  commander’s 
memory  was  to  honour  his  best-knovTn  theory,  when  he  was 

*  Jan.  20,  1912,  in  a  letter  from  Colonel  Willoughby  Verner. 

t  See  Hay’s  Peninsular  Reminiscences,  1808-15, 

:f  See  Rifleman  Harris,  p.  206, 


150 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


no  longer  there  to  enforce  its  acceptance  by  his  usual 
drastic  methods. 

I  could  write  much  more  of  this  notable  character,  with 
all  its  faults  and  merits.  But  so  much  must  suffice.  Nor 
have  I  space  to  tell  of  the  other  senior  generals  of  the 
Peninsular  War,  though  some  of  them,  such  as  Leith  and 
Cole,  were  great  fighting  men,  just  the  tools  that  suited 
Wellington’s  hand.  They  were,  however,  never  trusted 
with  independent  commands,  so  that  it  is  impossible  to 
judge  of  their  full  mental  stature.  I  should  be  inclined  to 
think  very  highly  of  Cole  from  his  conduct  at  Albuera,  for 
it  was  he  who  ordered,  on  his  own  responsibility,  -without 
any  permission  from  Beresford,  the  famous  advance  of  the 
Fusilier  Brigade  and  Harvey’s  Portuguese,  which  turned 
into  a  victory  that  most  perilous  battle.*  But  of  most 
of  Wellington’s  divisional  officers  we  can  only  say  that  they 
were  competent  for  the  task  set  them — the  vigorous  carry¬ 
ing  out  of  orders  which  were  given  them,  but  in  whose 
framing  they  had  no  part.  At  the  most,  tactical  skill  in 
execution  can  be  attributed  to  them,  and  of  this  there 
was  no  lack,  as  witness  details  of  Salamanca,  Vittoria,  and 
the  scattered  fighting  in  the  Pyrenees.  Almost  as  much 
can  be  predicated  of  some  of  the  great  brigadiers,  who 
managed  their  details  well,  but  never  had  the  chance  of 
shoving  their  full  powers.  It  would  be  easy  to  make  a 
long  list  of  them  ;  at  least  Kempt,  Pack,  Barns,  Mackinnon, 
Colborne,  Hay,  Lumley,  Ross,  Halkett,  Byng,  Pakenham, 
Beckwith,  and  Barnard  should  be  included  in  the  list. 
Some  of  them  died  or  were  invalided  early,  others  com¬ 
manded  brigades  at  Waterloo  again,  but  none,  save  Byng, 
of  this  string  of  names,  was  ever  given  permanent  command 
of  a  division,  though  several  of  them  had  held  the  interim 
charge  of  one  in  the  Peninsula,  when  their  regular  chiefs 
were  sick  or  absent.  Ross  and  Pakenham  alone  were 

*  Hardinge  advised  the  advance,  but  it  was  Cole  who,  being  in 
responsible  command,  ordered  and  executed  it.  He  it  is  who  should 
have  the  credit  both  for  the  resolve  and  for  the  tactics. 


Some  Unsatisfactory  Subordinates  151 

promoted  to  a  separate  command,  both  in  America.  The 
former  had  charge  of  the  expedition  which  went  to  the 
Potomac  and  Chesapeake  in  1813-14  ;  he  took  Washington 
by  a  vigorous  stroke,  but  fell  in  action  shortly  after,  while 
conducting  an  attack  on  Baltimore,  which  ceased  when  he 
fell.  Pakenham’s  expedition  to  New  Orleans  was  a  series 
of  misfortunes,  of  which  some  part  at  least  must  be  attri¬ 
buted  to  his  own  fault.  It  is  certain  that  Wellington  never 
trained  a  general  who  proved  himself  a  first-rate  exponent 
of  the  art  of  war  ;  but  his  system  (as  we  have  said  above) 
was  not  calculated  to  foster  initiative  or  self-reliance  among 
his  lieutenants. 

Other  subordinates  Wellington  possessed,  of  whom  we 
can  say  that  they  were  not  up  to  their  work,  even  in  the 
carrying  out  of  the  orders  given  them  with  common  self- 
reliance  and  clear-headedness.  Such  were  Spencer  and 
Slade,  who  were  only  capable  of  going  forward  to  carry 
out  a  definite  order  ;  it  was  necessary,  so  to  speak,  that 
they  should  simply  be  put  like  trams  on  a  line,  and  shoved 
forward,  or  they  would  slacken  the  pace  and  come  to  a 
stop,  from  want  of  initiative  and  moving  power.  Some 
few,  like  Sir  William  Erskine,  who  was  Wellington’s  pet 
aversion — yet  irremovable  because  of  the  political  influence 
that  backed  him — were  positively  dangerous  from  a  com¬ 
bination  of  short-sightedness,  carelessness,  and  self-will. 
In  one  dispatch  Wellington  says  that  he  thinks  that  he 
is  a  little  wrong  in  his  head.*  It  is  astounding  that  after 
Erskine’s  mistakes  at  Casal  Novo  and  Sabugal,  Wellington 
did  not  get  rid  of  him  at  all  costs ;  but  he  simply  tried  to 
shunt  him  on  to  commands  where  it  was  unlikely  that  he 
could  do  much  harm,  and  continued  solemnly  to  rehearse 
his  name  with  approval  in  his  dispatches,  along  with  those 
of  all  other  officers  of  his  rank,  till  the  unfortunate  man 
committed  suicide,  in  a  moment  of  insanity,  in  the  interval 
between  the  campaigns  of  1812  and  1813.  This  was  the 

*  See  Wellington  to  Torrens  (the  patronage  secretary  at  the  Horse 
Guards),  August  4,  1810. 


152 


Wellington’s  Lieutenants 


strongest  case  of  difficulty  which  Wellington,  for  reasons 
of  politics  and  patronage  at  home,  did  not  care  to  face  by 
the  decisive  step  of  sending  home  the  general  in  disgrace. 
But  there  were  several  brigadier-generals  whom  he  had  not 
asked  for,  whom  he  disliked,  and  whose  departure  from  the 
Peninsula  he  saluted  with  a  small  psalm  of  thanksgiving  in 
his  private  letters.*  It  is  certainly  astonishing  that,  even 
after  1811,  he  was  not  given  a  free  hand  to  get  rid  of  sub¬ 
ordinates  whom  he  knew  to  be  incompetent  or  recalcitrant, 
any  more  than  he  was  given  the  power  to  promote  officers 
without  a  tedious  reference  to  the  Horse  Guards.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  later  years  of  the  war  his  recommendations 
were  generally  (but  not  always)  carried  out ;  yet  it  took 
whole  months  for  a  request  made  in  a  letter  from  Salamanca 
or  Madrid  to  reach  London,  to  be  there  acceded  to,  and 
then  to  take  effect  by  a  publication  of  the  Gazette.  The 
power  to  punish  or  reward  with  promptness  was  never 
granted  ;  there  was  always  a  long  delay.  And  both 
punishment  and  reward  lose  much  of  their  salutary  effect 
when  there  is  an  interval  of  months  between  the  act  and  its 
consequence.  Napoleon  had  a  unique  advantage  in  being 
at  once  the  commander-in-chief  and  the  dispenser  of 
favours  and  chastisement  ;  with  him  there  was  no  time  lost 
in  lengthy  reference  to  a  home  government. 

*  See,  e.g.,  Wellington,  Dispatches,  vi.,  under  Oct.  4,  1810. 
Among  the  generals  whose  departure  he  viewed  (for  various  reasons) 
with  equanimity,  were  Sir  Robert  Wilson,  Lightburne,  Tilson,  and 
Nightingale. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  ARMY  :  HEADQUARTERS 

Having  dealt  with  the  greater  personalities  among  Welling¬ 
ton’s  lieutenants,  it  remains  that  we  should  speak  of  the 
organization  by  which  his  army  was  set  in  motion. 

Some  great  commanders  have  trusted  much  to  their 
staff,  and  have  kept  their  ablest  subordinates  about  their 
person.  This  was  pre-eminently  not  the  case  with  Welling¬ 
ton  :  he  was  as  averse  to  providing  himself  with  a  regular 
chief-of-the-staff,  as  he  was  to  allowing  a  formal  second-in- 
command  to  accompany  his  army.  The  duties  which 
would,  according  to  modem  ideas,  fall  to  the  chief-of-the- 
staff,  were  by  him  divided  between  three  officers,  one  of 
whom  was  of  quite  junior  standing,  and  only  one  of  whom 
held  a  higher  rank  than  that  of  colonel.  These  officers  were 
the  Military  Secretary,  the  Quartermaster-General,  and  the 
Adj  utant-General. 

The  Military  Secretary  was  merely  responsible  for  the 
correct  drawing  out,  and  the  transmission  to  the  proper 
person  or  department,  of  the  correspondence  of  the  com¬ 
mander-in-chief.  The  post  was  held  from  April  27,  1809, 
to  September  19,  1810,  by  Lieutenant-Colonel  Bathurst,  of 
the  60th.  On  the  last-named  date  he  went  home  on  leave, 
and  Captain  Lord  Fitzroy  Somerset  was  given  the  status 
of  acting-secretary,  and  confirmed  as  actual  secretary  three 
months  later  on  January  1,  1811.  This  officer,  better 
remembered  by  his  later  title  as  the  Lord  Raglan  of  the 
Crimean  War,  held  the  office  till  the  end  of  the  war — by 
which  time  he  had  reached  the  rank  of  colonel.  He  was 


154  Organization  :  Headquarters 

one  of  Wellington’s  best-trusted  subordinates,  and  his 
personal  friend,  but  being  very  young,  and  junior  in  rank 
to  all  beads  of  departments,  he  was  in  no  sense  an  appreciable 
factor  in  Wellington’s  conduct  of  the  war.  In  fact,  he  was 
nothing  more  than  his  title  of  secretary  indicated,  and  was 
in  no  way  responsible  for  organization,  or  entitled  to  offer 
advice. 

Much  more  important  were  the  two  great  heads  of 
departments,  the  Quartermaster-General  and  Adjutant- 
General.  The  former  was  charged  with  all  matters  relating 
to  the  embarkation  or  disembarkation,  the  equipment, 
quartering,  halting,  encamping,  and  route-marching  of  the 
various  units  of  the  army.  He  had  to  convey  to  all  generals 
in  command  of  them  the  orders  of  the  general-in-chief, 
and  for  this  purpose  had  under  his  control  a  number  of 
officers  bearing  the  clumsy  titles  of  assistant-quartermaster- 
generals,  and  deputy-assistant-quartermaster-generals.  Of 
the  former  there  were  five,  of  the  latter  seven,  when  the 
army  was  first  organized  in  April,  1809,  but  their  numbers 
were  continually  increasing  all  through  the  war,  for  each  unit 
had  an  assistant-quartermaster-general  and  a  deputy- 
assistant-quartermaster-general  attached  to  it,  and  as  the 
divisions  and  brigades  grew  in  number,  so  did  the  officers 
of  the  Quartermaster-General’s  department  told  off  to  them. 
There  was  also  a  parallel  growth  in  the  number  of  those  who 
remained  at  headquarters,  directly  attached  to  their  chief. 

There  is  an  interesting  minute  by  Wellington,  laying 
down  the  relations  between  the  divisional  generals  and  the 
staff-officers  of  the  department  :  he  points  out  that,  though 
the  latter  are  the  organs  of  headquarters  in  dealing  with 
divisions,  yet  they  are  under  the  command  of  the  divisional 
general  :  and  the  responsibility  both  for  the  orders  given 
through  them  being  carried  out,  and  for  their  acts  in 
general,  lies  with  the  division-commander.  “  Every  staff 
officer,”  he  says,  “  must  be  considered  as  acting  under  the 
direct  orders  and  superintendence  of  the  superior  officer 
for  whose  assistance  he  is  employed,  and  who  is  responsible 


The  Quartermaster-General  155 

for  his  acts.  To  consider  the  relative  situation  of  the 
general  officer  and  the  staff  officer  in  any  other  light,  would 
tend  to  alter  the  nature  of  the  Service,  and,  in  fact,  might 
give  the  command  of  the  troops  to  a  subaltern  staff  officer 
instead  of  to  their  general  officer.”  * 

The  officers  of  the  Quartermaster-General’s  department, 
besides  their  duties  with  regard  to  the  moving  of  the  army, 
or  the  detachments  of  it,  had  often  to  undertake  independent 
work  at  a  distance  from  headquarters,  and  sometimes 
remote  from  the  theatre  of  war.  It  was  they  who  made 
topographical  surveys,  reports  on  roads  and  bridges,  and 
on  the  resources  of  districts  through  which  the  army  might 
have  to  move  in  the  near  or  distant  future.  There  was 
issued  early  in  1810  a  little  manual  called  Instructions  for 
the  officers  in  the  department  of  the  Quartermaster-General 
which  was  given  to  all  its  members  :  it  contains  a  selection 
of  orders  and  forms,  relating  to  every  possible  duty  with 
which  its  recipients  might  be  entrusted.  The  most  interest¬ 
ing  section  is  that  on  topographical  surveys,  to  which  there 
is  annexed  a  model  report  of  the  road  from  Truxillo  to 
Merida,  containing  notes  on  everything  which  a  staff  officer 
ought  to  notice, — positions,  defiles,  size  of  villages,  character 
of  sections  of  the  road,  amount  of  corn-land  as  opposed 
to  pasture  or  waste,  warnings  as  to  unhealthy  spots,  notes 
as  to  the  depth  of  rivers  and  the  practicability  of  fords,  etc. 

So  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  Wellington  had  only  two 
Quartermaster-Generals  during  the  whole  of  the  long  period 
of  his  supreme  command.  Colonel  George  Murray  of  the 
3rd  Guards  held  the  post  from  April,  1809,  to  May  28, 
1812  :  he  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  two  other 
Murrays,  who  sometimes  turn  up  in  the  dispatches.  One 
is  Major-General  John  Murray,  who  commanded  a  brigade 
in  the  Oporto  campaign,  went  home  because  he  considered 
that  Beresford  had  been  unjustly  promoted  over  his  head, 
and  came  out  later  to  the  Peninsula  on  the  Catalan  side, 
where  he  was  responsible  for  the  mismanaged  operations 
*  Minute  on  p.  572  of  the  Collected  General  Orders, 


156  Organization  :  Headquarters 

about  Tarragona.  The  other  is  John  Murray,  the  Com¬ 
missary-General.  When  Wellington  sometimes  uses  such 
a  phrase  in  his  dispatches  as  “Murray  knows  this,”  or  “see 
that  Murray  is  informed,”  it  is  often  most  difficult  to  be  sure 
which  of  the  three  men  is  meant.  Early  in  1811  Colonel 
George  Murray  became  a  major-general,  and  in  the  following 
May  he  appears  to  have  gone  home.  He  was  replaced  as 
Quartermaster-General  by  Colonel  James  Gordon — who, 
again,  must  not  be  confused  with  Colonel  Sir  Alexander 
Gordon,  who  was  one  of  Wellington’s  senior  aides-de-camp, 
and  was  killed  at  Waterloo.  This  is  another  of  the  con¬ 
fusions  between  homonyms  which  often  give  trouble.  If  a 
diarist  speaks  of  “  Colonel  Gordon  ”  we  have  to  find  which 
of  the  two  is  meant.  James  Gordon,  having  acted  as 
quartermaster-general  from  May,  1811,  to  January,  1813, 
went  home,  and  George  Murray,  returning  early  in  that 
year,  worked  out  the  remaining  fifteen  months  of  the  war 
in  his  old  position. 

Parallel  with  the  Quartermaster-General  was  the  other 
great  departmental  chief  at  headquarters,  the  Adjutant- 
General,  whose  sphere  of  activity  was  disciplinary  and 
statistical.  He  was  charged  with  all  the  detail  of  duties 
to  be  distributed,  with  the  collecting  and  compiling  for  the 
use  of  the  commander-in-chief  of  all  retui’ns  of  men  and 
horses  in  “  morning  states,”  etc.,  with  the  supreme  super¬ 
vision  of  the  discipline  of  the  army,  and  with  much  official 
correspondence  that  did  not  pass  to  the  Military  Secretary. 
Roughly  speaking,  the  internal  condition  of  the  troops  fell 
to  his  share,  while  their  movement  belonged  to  the  Quarter¬ 
master-General.  He  had  to  aid  him  on  the  first  organization 
of  the  army  in  1809,  eight  assistant-adjutant-generals  and  six 
deputy-assistant-adjutant-generals,  but  (as  in  the  Quarter¬ 
master-General’s  department)  the  number  of  subordinates 
mounted  up,  as  the  war  went  on,  and  new  units  were  from 
time  to  time  created,  since  an  assistant-adjutant-general 
was  attached  to  each  division. 

The  first  holder  of  the  office  was  Major-General  the  Hon, 


The  Adjutant-General 


157 


Charles  Stewart  (afterwards  Lord  Londonderry,  the  earliest 
historian  of  the  Peninsular  War),  who  was  discharging  its 
functions  from  April,  1809,  till  April,  1813,  just  four  years. 
He  was  then  sent  on  a  diplomatic  mission  to  Berlin,  and 
Wellington  offered  the  post  to  his  own  brother-in-law, 
Major-General  Edward  Pakenham,  who,  while  in  charge  of 
the  3rd  division,  had  made  the  decisive  charge  at  Salamanca. 
Pakenham  was  adjutant-general  for  the  last  year  of  the 
war,  April,  1813,  to  April,  1814,  and  went  straight  out  from 
Bordeaux  to  command  the  unlucky  New  Orleans  expedition, 
in  which  he  lost  his  life. 

It  will  be  noted  that  Wellington  had  actually  only  two 
Quartermaster-Generals  and  two  Adjutant-Generals  under 
him  during  the  five  years  of  his  Peninsular  command — a 
sufficient  proof  that  when  he  had  found  his  man  he  stuck 
to  him.  Charles  Stewart,  who  served  him  so  long,  was  a 
person  of  some  political  importance,  as  the  brother  and 
confidant  of  Lord  Castlereagh.  In  the  early  part  of  his 
tenure  of  office  he  seems  sometimes  to  have  made  suggestions 
to  his  chief,  but  met  little  encouragement,  for  Wellington 
loved  his  own  way,  and  was  not  to  be  influenced  even  by  his 
own  highest  staff  officers.*  He  did  not  wish  to  have  a 
Gneisenau  or  a  Moltke  at  his  side  :  he  only  wanted  zealous 
and  competent  chief  clerks. 

Attached  to  headquarters  in  addition  to  the  three  great 
functionaries  already  named,  were  the  heads  of  several  other 
departments  of  great  importance.  These  were — 

(1)  The  general  officer  commanding  the  Royal  Artillery, 
who  had  a  general  supervisory  charge  of  the  batteries 
attached  to  the  divisions,  and  a  more  specific  control  of 
the  battering  train  and  reserve  artillery,  when  these  came 
into  existence  in  1811,  as  well  as  of  the  ammunition  columns. 
The  first  artillery  chief  was  Brigadier-General  E.  Howarth, 
who  arrived  at  Lisbon  in  1809,  about  the  same  time  as 
Wellington  himself.  He  was  promoted  major-general  in 

*  Stewart  chafed  at  his  checks,  and  wrote  bitterly  to  Castlereagh 
about  the  insignificance  of  his  position. 


158  Organization  :  Headquarters 

1811,  and  went  home  that  year.  The  command  then  went 
through  a  rapid  succession  of  hands.  Howarth  was  followed 
by  Major-General  Borthwick,  who  apparently  crossed 
Wellington,  and  went  home  in  March,  1812,  after  less  than 
a  year’s  tenure  of  the  post.  Borthwick  was  succeeded  by 
Colonel  H.  Framingham,  and  he  within  a  few  months  by 
Colonel  G.  B.  Fisher,  who  (like  Borthwick)  fell  out  with 
the  commander-in-chief,  and  applied  for  leave  to  go  home 
ere  1813  was  six  months  old.  Wellington  then  appointed 
Colonel  Alexander  Dickson  to  the  command  late  in  May. 
This  officer  had  been  for  the  last  two  years  in  charge  of  the 
Portuguese  artillery  under  Beresford.  He  had  given  such 
satisfaction  at  Rodrigo  and  Badajoz  that  Wellington  re¬ 
transferred  him  to  the  British  service,  and  finished  the 
campaign  of  1814  with  Dickson  in  chief  charge  of  this 
branch. 

(2)  After  the  artillery  chief  we  encounter  as  a  prominent 
figure  at  headquarters  the  commanding  officer  of  Royal 
Engineers.  He  had  the  superintending  duty  over  his  own 
staff  and  the  engineer  officers  attached  to  the  divisions,  and 
control  over  the  “  Royal  Military  Artificers,”  as  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  scientific  corps  were  named  till  1812,  when  they 
changed  their  title  to  Royal  Sappers  and  Miners.*  The 
commanding  engineer  had  also  charge  over  the  engineers’ 
park  and  the  pontoon  train.  The  officer  who  held  this  post 
from  1809  till  he  was  killed  at  St.  Sebastian  in  September, 
1813,  was  Colonel  Richard  Fletcher,  who  has  left  a  fame 
behind  him  as  the  designer  of  the  Lines  of  Torres  Vedras. 
On  his  death  the  command  fell  to  Lieut. -Colonel  Elphinstone, 
who  was  responsible  for  the  celebrated  bridge  of  boats 
across  the  mouth  of  the  Adour  which  made  the  siege  of 
Bayonne  possible  in  1814. 

(3,  4)  At  headquarters  were  also  to  be  found  the  officers 
commanding  the  Staff  Corps  Cavalry,  and  the  Corps  of 
Guides.  The  former,  a  small  unit  of  some  200  men,  created 
in  1812,  discharged  the  police  duties  of  the  army,  and  were 
*  See  Chapter  XVIII.  on  Sieges,  p.  286. 


Minor  Heads  of  Departments 


159 


worked  along  with  the  Provost  Marshal.  They  were  occa¬ 
sionally  also  employed  as  orderlies,  and  in  other  confidential 
positions.*  The  Guides  were  a  small  body  also,  some 
150  or  200  strong,  partly  British,  partly  Portuguese,  the 
latter  preponderating.  They  were  detached  in  twos  or 
threes,  to  act  as  interpreters  as  well  as  guides  to  bodies  of 
troops  moving  in  country  not  known  to  them.  For  this 
reason  they  had  to  be  bilingual,  either  English  knowing 
some  Portuguese,  or  Portuguese  knowing  some  English,  as 
they  had  always  to  be  acting  as  intermediaries  between  the 
army  and  the  peasantry,  in  making  inquiries  about  roads, 
supplies,  etc.  The  officer  commanding  the  Guides  had  also 
the  charge  of  the  post  office,  and  the  transmission  of  letters 
to  and  from  the  front. 

(5)  The  Provost  Marshal  was  also  attached  to  head¬ 
quarters  :  he  had  charge  of  all  prisoners  to  be  tried  by  general 
court-martial,  of  deserters,  and  prisoners  of  war.  He  had 
powers  of  jurisdiction  on  offenders  caught  red-handed,  but 
as  Wellington  remarks,  “  Whatever  may  be  the  crime  of 
which  a  soldier  is  guilty,  the  Provost  Marshal  has  not  the 
power  of  inflicting  summary  punishment  for  it,  unless  he 
should  see  him  in  the  act  of  committing  it.”  f  Men 
arrested  on  evidence  only,  had  to  be  tried  by  court-martials. 
For  the  better  management  of  these  last,  Wellington  added  a 
Judge- Advocate-General  to  his  staff  in  1812,  w'hose  duty 
was  to  see  that  trials  were  conducted  with  proper  forms  and 
due  appreciation  of  the  validity  of  evidence — in  which  the 
commander-in-chief  considered  that  they  had  often  failed. 
Mr.  Francis  Larpent,  who  has  left  an  interesting  diary  of 
his  duties  and  his  personal  adventures,  discharged  the 

*  For  special  note  as  to  the  functions  of  the  “  Staff  Corps  of 
Cavalry  ”  raised  in  March,  1813,  see  the  General  Order  of  that  date. 
This  body  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the  Staff  Corps, 
concerning  which  see  Fortescue’s  British  Army,  iv.  p,  881  :  it  was 
a  kind  of  subsidiary  corps  of  military  artificers,  independent  of  the 
Ordnance  Office  to  which  “  Royal  Military  Artificers  ”  belonged. 
This  was  a  vicious  duplication  of  parallel  organizations. 

t  General  Order,  Freneda,  Nov.  1,  1811. 


160  Organization  :  Headquarters 

function  of  this  office  from  his  arrival  late  in  1812  down  to 
the  end  of  the  war.* 

As  to  aides-de-camp,  Wellington  kept  a  very  limited 
number  of  them — he  only  employed  some  twenty  in  the 
course  of  the  war,  and  not  more  than  eight  or  ten  at  once. 
They  were  nearly  all  young  men  of  the  great  political 
fainilies,|  nearly  half  of  them  were  Guards’  officers,  and 
the  rest  mostly  belonged  to  the  cavalry.  The  Prince  of 
Orange  served  among  them  in  1811-12.  None  of  them, 
save  Lord  Pitzroy  Somerset  (Lord  Raglan)  and  Colonel 
Cadogan,  came  to  any  very  great  military  position  or 
reputation. 

So  much  for  the  military  side  of  headquarters.  There 
were  also  attached  to  it  seven  civil  departments,  small  and 
great,  of  which  it  may  be  well  to  give  a  list.  On  one  or 
two  of  these  we  shall  have  to  speak  at  some  length  in  later 
chapters — notably  the  Commissariat  and  the  Medical 
department.  They  consisted  of — 

(1)  The  Medical  Department  under  an  Inspector  of 
Hospitals,  who  was  in  general  charge  of  the  physicians, 
surgeons,  assistants,  etc.,  attached  to  the  various  units  of 
the  army.  There  is  an  excellent  account  of  the  management 
of  this  department,  and  all  its  difficulties,  in  the  Autobio¬ 
graphy  of  Sir  James  McGrigor,  chief  of  the  Medical  Staff 
in  1812-13-14.  His  predecessor  since  Wellington’s  first 
landing  in  1809  was  Dr.  Frank,  who  was  invalided  in  the 
autumn  of  1811. 

(2)  The  Purveyor’s  Department  was  independent  of  the 
medical,  though  it  might  well  have  been  attached  to  it  : 
the  establishment  consisted  of  a  Purveyor  to  the  Forces, 
with  deputies  and  assistants,  who  had  charge  of  the  hospitals 
and  all  the  material  and  details  required  for  them — from 

*  Private  Journal  of  Judge- Advocate  Larpent,  1812-14,  published 
London,  1853. 

|  Names  may  suffice  to  show  the  class  from  which  they  were 
drawn :  Marquis  of  Worcester,  Lord  March,  Bathurst,  Bouverie, 
Burghersh,  Canning,  Manners,  Stanhope,  Fremantle,  Gordon, 
de  Burgh,  Cadogan,  Fitzroy  Somorset. 


The  Commissariat  161 

the  drugs  for  the  sick  to  the  burial  expenses  of  the 
dead. 

(3)  The  Paymaster-General,  with  his  assistants,  was 
responsible  for  the  transmission  of  the  money  received  to 
the  regimental  paymasters  of  the  various  units.  He  was  a 
much-worried  man,  generally  from  three  to  six  months  in 
arrears  with  his  specie,  from  no  fault  of  his  own,  but  from 
the  immense  difficulty  of  obtaining  the  hard  dollars,  doub¬ 
loons,  and  “  cruzados  novos,”  which  alone  had  currency  in 
the  Peninsula  till  a  late  period  in  the  war.  It  was  useless 
to  issue  English  money  to  the  troops,  for  the  natives  would 
not  accept  crowns  and  guineas,  and  refused  even  to  look  at 
the  one-pound  notes  which  were  almost  the  sole  circulating 
medium  in  Great  Britain  during  this  period.  It  was  only 
in  a  late  year  of  the  war  that  the  gold  guinea  was  at  last 
tariffed  by  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Governments,  and 
became  readily  current.* 

(4)  Most  important  of  all  the  Civil  Departments  was 
the  Commissariat,  under  the  Commissary-General,  who  had 
under  him  Deputy-Commissary-Generals,  Assistant  and 
Deputy-Assistant-Commissaries,  Commissariat  Clerks,  and 
many  other  subordinates.  The  department  was  divided 
into  two  branches,  stores  and  accounts.  The  post  of 
Commissary-General  was  successively  held  by  John  Murray 
(already  mentioned  above)  from  1809  to  June,  1810,  by 
Kennedy  from  June,  1810,  to  September,  1811,  and  by 
Bisset  from  September,  1811,  onward.  An  assistant  com¬ 
missary  was  attached  to  each  brigade  of  infantry  and 
each  regiment  of  cavalry,  but  a  single  official  had  to  attend 
to  the  needs  of  the  whole  of  the  artillery  -with  the  army, 
and  another  to  the  needs  of  headquarters,  f 

The  whole  future  of  the  army  in  1809  depended  on 
whether  the  Commissariat  Department  would  be  able  to 
rise  to  the  height  of  its  duties.  It  was  absolutely  neces¬ 
sary  that  Wellington  should  be  able  to  keep  his  army 

*  See  note  on  page  270  of  chapter  xvi  on  “  Impedimenta.” 

f  See  General  Order  of  May  4,  1809. 


M 


162  Organization  :  Headquarters 

concentrated,  if  this  small  force  of  20,000  or  30,000  men  was 
to  be  of  any  weight  in  the  conduct  of  the  war  in  the  Peninsula  . 
The  much-cursed  and  criticized  Commissariat  succeeded  in 
doing  its  duty,  and  the  length  of  time  for  which  the  British 
army  could  keep  concentrated  was  the  envy  of  the  French, 
who,  living  on  the  country,  were  forced  to  disperse  whenever 
they  had  exhausted  the  resources  of  the  particular  region 
in  which  they  were  massed.  In  a  way  this  fact  was  the 
key  to  the  whole  war.  Wellington’s  salvation  lay  in  the 
fact  that  he  could  hold  his  entire  army  together,  while  his 
adversaries  could  not.  On  this  advantage  he  relied  again 
and  again  :  his  whole  strategy  depended  upon  it.  How 
the  Commissariat  worked  we  shall  show  in  a  later  chapter. 

(5)  The  Storekeeper-General  had  charge  of  the  field 
equipments,  tents,  and  heavy  baggage  of  the  army.  Often 
the  heavy  baggage  was  left  at  Lisbon,  and  all  through 
1809-10-11  no  tents  were  taken  to  the  front.  It  was  only 
in  the  Vittoria  and  South-French  campaigns  that  the  whole 
army  regularly  carried  them.  In  the  days  when  the 
transport  trains  were  not  fully  organized,  it  was  necessary 
to  leave  even  valuable  impedimenta  behind. 

(6)  To  the  Controller  of  Army  Accounts  all  departments, 
save  the  Commissariat,  rendered  their  statistics  of  money 
received  and  spent. 

(7)  Last,  we  may  name  the  Press,  for  a  travelling  Press 
and  a  small  staff  of  military  printers  accompanied  the 
headquarters  when  possible,  and  printed  general  orders, 
and  other  documents  and  forms,  of  which  many  copies 
were  required.  I  have  seen  much  of  its  work  at  the  Record 
Office,*  but  have  never  come  across  an  account  of  its  organi¬ 
zation,  or  of  any  anecdotes  of  its  wandering  life,  in  which  it 
must  have  passed  through  many  vicissitudes.  The  press 
was  under  the  general  supervision  of  the  Adjutant-General. 

*  Its  most  ambitious  efforts  were  a  small  volume  of  maps  printed 
at  Cambray,  during  the  occupation  of  France  after  Waterloo,  with 
notes  by  Col.  Carmichael  Smith,  R.E.,  and  the  General  Orders  for 
1815,  printed  at  Paris,  by  Sergeant  Buchan,  3rd  Guards,  head 
printer  to  the  Army  of  Occupation. 


CHAPTER  IX 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  ARMY  :  BRIGADES  AND  DIVISIONS 

It  will  probably  surprise  some  readers  to  learn  that  Sir 
Arthur  Wellesley  fought  out  the  first  campaign  in  which 
he  held  supreme  command,  that  of  Oporto  in  May,  1809, 
with  no  higher  organized  unit  than  the  brigade.  But  this 
is  the  fact  :  the  18,000  infantry  of  which  he  could  dispose 
were  distributed  into  eight  brigades  of  two  or  three  battahons 
each,  varying  in  strength  from  1400  up  to  2500  bayonets. 
But  Wellesley  was  not  so  belated,  in  failing  to  form  divisions, 
as  might  be  thought.  They  were  still  rather  an  abnormal 
than  a  usual  unit  for  a  British  army  :  indeed,  in  the  large 
majority  of  the  expeditions  in  which  Great  Britain  had 
been  engaged  since  1793,  the  numbers  were  so  small  that 
no  unit  above  the  brigade  had  been  necessary.  But  it  is 
notable  that  neither  in  the  Duke  of  York’s  first  expedition 
to  the  Netherlands  in  1793-94,  nor  in  his  second  in  1799, 
nor  in  Abercrombie’s  Egyptian  Campaign  of  1801  had 
divisions  been  formed — though  in  each  of  these  cases  a 
very  large  force  had  been  assembled.  When  several 
brigades  acted  together,  not  under  the  immediate  eye  of 
the  commander-in-chief,  the  senior  brigadier  present  took 
temporary  charge  of  the  assemblage.  In  the  Low  Countries 
York  generally  speaks  of  his  army  as  being  divided  into 
“  columns  ”  of  two  or  three  brigades  each,*  but  there  was  no 
fixity  in  the  arrangement.  Abercrombie,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  the  last  dispatch  which  he  wrote  before  his  victory  and 
death  at  Alexandria,  lays  down  the  theoretical  organization 

*  See,  for  example,  York’s  Alkmaar  dispatch  of  Oct.  C,  1799. 


164  Organization  :  Brigades  and  Divisions 


that  the  army  is  to  be  considered  as  being  divided  into 
three  “  lines  ” — the  first  composed  of  three  brigades,  the 
second  and  third  of  two  each.  If  the  word  division  is  used 
in  any  official  documents  of  these  campaigns,  the  term  has 
no  technical  military  sense,  but  is  used  as  a  vague  synonym 
for  a  section  or  part  of  the  army.*  Indeed,  so  far  as  I  know, 
the  first  British  force  during  the  great  French  War  which 
was  formed  into  divisions,  in  the  proper  modem  sense,  was 
the  army  which  went  on  the  Copenhagen  Expedition  of 
1807,  which  was  regularly  distributed  into  four  of  such 
units,  each  under  a  heu tenant -general,  and  each  composed 
of  two,  three,  or  four  weak  brigades,  generally  of  only  two 
battalions.  This  was  a  force  of  some  26,000  men. 

The  original  Peninsular  Army  of  1808,  which  landed  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Mondego,  and  won  the  battle  of  Vimeiro, 
was  not  far,  therefore,  from  being  the  first  British  force 
organized  in  divisions.  It  may  be  noted  that  they  were 
rather  theoretical  than  real,  for  several  brigades  had  not 
yet  landed  when  Vimeiro  was  fought,  and  Wellesley,  while 
in  temporary  command,  worked  the  incomplete  army  on  a 
brigade  system  :  no  trace  whatever  of  the  use  of  the 
divisions  as  real  units  will  be  found  in  that  battle.  Indeed, 
even  the  theoretical  composition  of  some  of  the  brigades 
differed  from  that  actually  seen  in  action.  No  genuine 
divisions  were  formed  in  the  Peninsula,  till  Sir  John  Moore 
took  command  of  the  army  from  which  its  old  chiefs,  Dal- 
rymple,  Burrand  and  Wellesley  himself  had  been  removed 
and  sent  home.  We  must  not,  therefore,  be  surprised 
to  find  that  for  three  months  after  he  landed  at  Lisbon  in 
April,  1809,  Wellesley  worked  his  21,000  British  troops  in 
detached  brigades,  only  connected  in  a  formal  and  temporary 
way,  under  the  senior  brigadier,  when  two  or  more  chanced 
to  form  a  marching  or  fighting  unit. 

But  two  other  points  concerning  Wellesley’s  Oporto 

*  E.g.  in  Walsh’s  Expedition  to  Holland  in  1799,  p.  22,  the  whole 
original  landing  force  of  the  British,  15,000  bayonets,  is  called  the 
“  first  division,”  but  only  in  contrast  to  the  troops  not  yet  landed, 
not  technically. 


i 


The  Original  Four  Divisions  165* 

campaign  deserve  notice.  This  was  the  first  and  only 
occasion  on  which  he  tried  the  experiment  of  mixing  British 
and  Portuguese  regiments  in  the  same  brigade.*  To  five  of 
the  eight  brigades  forming  his  infantry  a  Portuguese 
battalion  was  attached,  picked  as  being  one  of  the  best  of 
the  rather  disorderly  assembly  which  Beresford  had  collected 
at  Abrantes  and  Thomar.  Though  the  Portuguese  fought 
not  amiss  during  this  short  campaign,  and  are  mentioned 
with  praise  in  Wellesley’s  dispatches,  yet  the  experiment 
was  not  continued,  evidently  because  it  was  found  not  to 
work  happily.  The  five  Portuguese  battalions  were  sent 
back  to  Beresford  not  long  after  the  fall  of  Oporto. 

The  other  point  to  be  noted  in  considering  Wellesley’s 
organization  of  his  army  in  the  Oporto  campaign,  is  that 
already  he  had  begun  the  system  of  strengthening  his 
skirmishers  by  the  addition  to  them  of  a  rifle  company  per 
brigade,  all  taken  from  the  5/60th.  The  importance  of 
this  arrangement  in  the  general  scheme  of  his  tactics  has 
been  already  explained  in  an  earlier  chapter,  f 

So  much  for  Wellesley’s  first  organization  of  his  army. 
It  did  not  endure  for  so  much  as  three  months,  for  on 
June  18,  1809,  a  General  Order,  dated  from  the  Adjutant- 
General’s  office  at  Abrantes,  gave  to  the  army  the  organiza¬ 
tion  in  divisions,  under  which  it  was  to  win  all  its  subsequent 
victories.  In  the  midst  of  some  insignificant  directions  as 
to  forage  and  ammunition,  appears  the  clause  that  “  as 
the  weather  now  admits  of  the  troops  hutting,  and  they 
can  move  together  in  large  bodies,  brigades  can  be  formed 
into  divisions,  as  follows.” 

The  original  disposition  was  for  four  divisions  only,  of 
which  the  first  consisted  of  four  brigades,  the  other  three 
of  two  brigades  each.  All  the  battalions  in  them  were  in 
the  British  service,  no  Portuguese  being  included.  The 

*  With  the  exception,  of  course,  that  the  1st  and  3rd  Capador 
battalions  served  all  through  the  war  in  the  two  brigades  of  the 
Light  Division. 

t  See  p.  83. 


1GG  Organization  :  Brigades  and  Divisions 


four  line  battalions  of  the  King’s  German  Legion  were 
arranged  first  as  one,  and  then  as  two  brigades  of  the  First 
Division.  Of  the  ten  brigades  into  which  the  infantry  of 
the  army  were  now  divided,  seven  had  two  battalions  only, 
the  other  three  three  battalions  each.  The  cavalry,  which 
had  recently  been  increased  by  the  arrival  of  two  regiments 
from  England,  was  organized  as  a  division  of  three  brigades 
of  two  regiments  each.  The  artillery,  of  which  only  five 
field  batteries  (or  “  companies  ”  as  they  were  then  called) 
had  reached  the  front,  was  not  yet  told  off  to  the  individual 
divisions  in  a  permanent  fashion,  though  certain  units  are 
generally  found  acting  with  the  same  division. 

As  to  the  command  of  the  divisions,  Wellington  con¬ 
templated  that  each  should  ultimately  be  in  the  charge  of 
a  lieutenant-general ;  but  as  he  had  only  three  officers  of 
such  rank  at  his  disposition — Hill,  Sherbrooke,  and  the 
cavalry  commander  Payne — the  General  Order  directs  that 
“  the  senior  general  officers  of  brigades  will  respectively 
take  the  command  of  the  division  in  which  their  brigades 
are  placed,  till  other  lieutenant-generals  shall  join  the  army.” 
This  placed  two  brigadiers,  McKenzie  and  A.  Campbell, 
in  temporary  charge  of  the  3rd  and  4th  divisions,  Sherbrooke 
taking  the  1st,  and  Hill  the  2nd.  Sherbrooke  went  home 
before  a  year  was  out,  but  Hill  was  to  remain  in  command 
of  the  2nd  division  throughout  the  war,  except  during  the 
short  periods  when  he  was  on  leave.  But  during  his  last 
three  years  in  the  Peninsula,  when  he  was  practically  acting 
as  commander  of  an  army  corps,  the  2nd  division  was,  in 
fact,  under  the  leadership  of  William  Stewart  as  his  sub¬ 
stitute.  The  only  modification  caused  in  internal  organi¬ 
zation  by  the  creation  of  the  new  divisions  was  that  an 
assistant-adjutant-general,  and  quartermaster-general,  and  a 
provost-marshal  were  attached  to  each  of  them,  and  that 
the  brigadiers  acting  as  division-commanders  were  authorized 
to  take  on  some  extra  aides-de-camp. 

It  was  with  this  organization  that  Wellington’s  army 
went  through  the  Talavera  campaign,  and  the  retreat  to 


Rearrangements  after  Talavera  167 


the  Guadiana  which  terminated  it.  The  whole  force  was 
British,  no  single  Portuguese  battalion  accompanying  it. 
The  troops  of  that  nation  were  being  employed  under 
Beresford  during  this  summer,  to  cover  the  frontier  of 
Beira,  between  the  Douro  and  the  Tagus.  Long  before 
the  campaign  was  over,  more  British  reinforcements  had 
begun  to  arrive  at  Lisbon,  and  had  been  pushed  forward 
some  distance  into  the  interior.  One  brigade,  that  com¬ 
posed  of  the  three  light  battalions,*  under  Robert  Craufurd, 
afterwards  to  be  famous  in  Peninsular  annals  as  the  nucleus 
of  the  “  Light  Division,”  got  to  the  front  after  a  tremendous 
march — somewhat  exaggerated  by  Napier  and  by  tradition 
— only  a  day  after  the  battle  of  Talavera.  Wellesley  incor¬ 
porated  it  for  a  movement  in  the  3rd  division,  in  which  it 
finished  the  campaign.  There  were  seven  other  battalions  f 
which  did  not  get  so  far  forward,  and  ultimately  joined 
Beresford’s  Portuguese  on  the  frontier  of  Spain.  In 
September  Wellington  drew  down  these  troops  to  join  him 
in  Estremadura,  and  made  from  them  a  third  brigade 
each  for  his  2nd  and  4th  Divisions.  But  there  was  about 
this  time  a  shifting  about  of  battalions  from  division  to 
division,  which  it  would  be  tedious  to  give  in  detail.  The 
net  result  was  that  at  the  end  of  1809  Wellington  had  four 
much  stronger  divisions  than  he  had  possessed  in  the 
summer,  the  1st  counting  nine  battalions  instead  of  its  old 
eight,  the  2nd  ten  instead  of  six,  the  3rd  still  six,  but  the 
4th  eight  instead  of  five. 

The  early  months  of  1810  were  spent  by  Wellington  in 
an  expectant  attitude,  behind  the  Portuguese  frontier,  as 
he  waited  for  the  inevitable  French  invasion  under  Massena, 
so  long  announced  and  so  long  delayed.  In  this  time  of 
long-deferred  anxiety,  while  the  Lines  of  Torres  Vedras  were 
being  busily  urged  towards  completion,  Wellington  carried 
out  some  most  important  changes  in  the  organization  of 

*  l/43rd,  l/52nd,  l/95th. 

t  2/5th,  1/1 1th,  2/2 8th,  2/34tli,  2/39th,  2/42nd  2/58th.  Tho 
l/40th  and  2/24th  joined  Wellington  in  time  for  Talavera. 


168  Organization  :  Brigades  and  Divisions 


his  army,  which  made  it  (except  in  the  matter  of  mere 
numbers)  exactly  what  it  was  to  remain  till  the  end  of  the 
war. 

The  most  notable  of  these  changes  was  that  he  made 
up  his  mind  to  revert  to  his  old  plan  of  April,  1809,  for 
mixing  the  Portuguese  and  British  troops.  It  took  a  new 
form,  however :  instead  of  placing  battalions  of  each 
nationality  side  by  side  in  his  brigades,  he  attached  a 
Portuguese  brigade  of  four  or  five  battalions  to  most  of 
his  British  divisions,  as  a  distinct  unit.  This  system  was 
started  with  the  3rd  and  4th  Divisions  on  Feb.  22, 1810.  A 
complete  Portuguese  brigade  consisted  of  two  line  regiments 
(each  of  two  battalions)  and  one  cagador  or  rifle  battalion. 
The  latter  was  always  employed  for  the  brigade’s  skirmishing 
work  ;  when  joined  by  the  four  light  companies  of  the  line 
battalions,  it  gave  a  very  heavy  proportion  of  light  troops 
to  the  unit.  This  Wellington  considered  necessary,  because 
of  the  untried  quality  of  the  whole  Portuguese  Army, 
which  had  not  yet  taken  a  serious  part  in  any  general 
action.  In  the  autumn  they  justified  Wellington’s  con¬ 
fidence  in  them  at  the  battle  of  Bussaco,  where  all  of  them, 
and  especially  the  two  cagador  battalions  attached  to  the 
Light  Division,  played  a  most  creditable  part. 

The  second  great  innovation  made  in  the  spring  of 
1810  was  the  creation  of  the  celebrated  Light  Division, 
which  came  into  existence  on  Feb.  22,  1810  ;  it  was  formed 
by  taking  Robert  Craufurd’s  brigade,  the  l/43rd,  l/52nd, 
and  l/95th  out  of  the  3rd  division,  and  adding  to  them  the 
above-mentioned  two  Portuguese  cagador  battalions.  Well¬ 
ington’s  design  was  to  produce  for  the  whole  army,  by  the 
institution  of  this  new  unit,  what  he  had  already  done  for 
the  individual  brigades  when  he  added  their  rifle  companies 
to  them  in  April,  1809.  The  Light  Division  was  to  be,  as 
it  were,  the  protective  screen  for  the  whole  army, — its 
strategical  skirmishing  line,  thrown  out  far  in  front  of  the 
rest  of  the  host,  to  keep  off  the  French  till  the  actual  moment 
of  battle^  and  to  hide  the  dispositions  of  the  main  body. 


The  Light  Division 


169 


At  the  head  of  this  small  corps  of  picked  light  tioops  was 
placed  Robert  Craufurd,  whom  Wellington  rightly  con¬ 
sidered  his  best  officer  for  outpost  and  reconnaissance  work. 
How  well  this  trusted  subordinate  discharged  the  duty  laid 
upon  him  has  been  told  in  the  chapter  dealing  with  his 
character  and  exploits.  All  through  the  war  Wellington 
used  the  Light  Division  as  his  screen,  for  his  advanced  guard 
when  he  was  moving  to  the  front,  for  his  rearguard  when 
he  was  on  the  retreat,  and  he  was  never  betrayed  by  it, 
even  after  Craufurd’s  death  had  left  its  conduct  in  the 
hands  of  chiefs  who  were  not  always  men  of  special  ability. 

After  the  creation  of  the  Light  Division,  Wellington 
had  five  instead  of  four  divisions,  and  another  was  added 
to  them  in  the  summer  of  1810,  when  in  August  he  created 
the  5th  Division,  so  long  commanded  by  General  Leith. 
This  was  formed  by  adding  to  a  British  brigade,  newly 
arrived  from  England,*  two  of  the  hitherto  unattached 
Portuguese  brigades.  A  second  British  brigade  was  pro¬ 
vided  in  October  for  Leith,  from  troops  newly  come  from 
Cadiz. f  These  having  come  to  hand,  the  5th  Division 
dropped  one  of  its  Portuguese  brigades,  and  became  a  unit 
of  the  normal  shape  and  size,  two-thirds  British,  one-third 
Portuguese.  It  did  not,  however,  receive  its  cayador 
battalion  (drawn  from  the  Lusitanian  Legion)  till  1811. 

During  the  campaign  of  Bussaco,  therefore,  Wellington 
had  six  divisions — the  old  ones  numbered  1st  to  4th,  the 
Light  Division,  and  the  newly-created  5th.  In  addition  to 
the  Portuguese  brigades  which  had  now  been  absorbed  into 
the  divisions,  there  remained  six  more  brigades  of  that 
nation  which  were  still  unattached.  Of  these  two,  under  the 
Brigadiers  Archibald  Campbell  and  Fonseca,  were  formed 
into  a  division  under  General  Hamilton,  which  always 
marched  with  Hill’s  2nd  Division,  but  was  never  formally 
made  part  of  it.  But  since  Hamilton  invariably  moved 

*  The  original  British  brigade  of  the  5th  division  consisted  of  the 
3/lst,  l/9th,  and  2/38th. 

t  The  2/30tli  and  2/44th,  to  which  the  l/4th  was  subsequently 
added. 


170  Organization  :  Brigades  and  Divisions 

along  with  Hill,  this  pair  of  units,  with  their  ten  British  and 
eight  Portuguese  battalions,  practically  formed  a  double 
division,  or  a  small  army  corps,  if  a  term  which  Wellington 
never  used  in  the  Peninsula  may  be  applied  to  it.* * * §  There 
remained  four  more  independent  Portuguese  brigades, 
those  of  Pack,  Alex.  Campbell,  Coleman,  and  Bradford. 
By  the  next  year  these  were  reduced  to  two,  as  one  brigade 
was  withdrawn  to  serve  with  the  new  British  7th  division, 
and  another  with  the  2nd.  The  surviving  units  continued  as 
unattached  brigades  till  the  end  of  the  war,  under  a  series 
of  commanding  officers,  whose  succession  is  sometimes  hard 
to  follow. 'j‘  They  often  accompanied  the  main  army,  but 
were  sometimes  separated  from  it  for  special  duties,  when 
some  force  less  than  a  division  was  wanted,  as  a  detachment 
for  a  subsidiary  operation. 

The  completion  of  the  Peninsular  Army  in  its  final 
shape,  which  was  not  again  to  be  varied,  took  place  during 
its  stay  by  the  Lines  of  Torres  Vedras,  in  the  winter  of 
1810-11.  It  was  then  that  the  two  junior  divisions  were 
created,  the  6th  in  October,  the  7th  early  in  March.  Their 
appearance  in  the  field  was,  of  course,  due  to  the  arrival  of 
a  considerable  number  of  fresh  battalions  from  England 
during  the  autumn  and  winter.  But  Wellington  did  not 
take  all  the  new-comers  and  build  up  fresh  divisions  from 
them.  The  6th  Division  was  made  by  taking  an  old  brigade 
(Archibald  Campbell’s)  from  the  4th  Division,  and  uniting 
it  to  the  extra  Portuguese  brigade  of  the  5th  Division. $ 
The  second  British  brigade  of  the  6th  division  was  provided 
some  months  later  from  newly-arrived  troops  from  England. § 

*  The  name  Army-Corps  appears  first  in  the  Waterloo  Campaign 
of  1815. 

f  The  succession  of  brigadiers  seems  to  have  been,  in  the  one 
brigade,  Pack  followed  by  Wilson  and  Alex.  Campbell ;  in  the  other 
Bradford  continued  almost  through  the  whole  war,  but  McMahon 
was  in  command  in  part  of  1811-12.  After  June,  1811,  Ashworth’s 
Brigade  was  regularly  attached  to  the  2nd  division. 

f  Now  no  longer  wanted,  as  Leith  had  received  his  second 
British  brigade. 

§  2nd,  l/36th,  and  (added  long  months  after)  the  l/32nd. 


Creation  of  6tii  and  7th  Divisions  171 


The  4th  Division  was  compensated  for  the  brigade  it  had 
given  to  the  6th  by  taking  over  a  brigade  (Pakenham’s) 
from  the  1st  Division — while  the  1st  Division,  to  replace  this 
last  unit,  received  three  battalions  *  which  had  just  come 
out  from  home. 

This  was  a  complicated  shift  and  transfer,  intended  to 
secure  a  level  quality  in  the  divisions  by  the  mixture  of 
recently  arrived  and  veteran  battalions.  But  in  organizing 
his  last  creation,  the  7th  Division,  Wellington  was  prevented 
by  circumstances  from  carrying  out  the  same  wise  plan. 
Much  belated  in  their  arrival  at  Lisbon  by  contrary  winds, 
the  last  batch  of  reinforcements  sent  to  him  for  the  cam¬ 
paign  of  1811,  landed  when  the  main  army  was  already  in 
pursuit  of  Massena,  who  had  just  started  on  his  retreat 
from  Santarem.  Wellington  was  forced  to  keep  them 
together,  since  he  had  no  time  to  distribute  them  when  the 
troops  were  all  on  the  move.  The  7th  division  was  at  first 
very  weak,  containing  only  one  brigade  in  British  pay, 
consisting  of  two  English  and  two  foreign  corps, f  and  one 
Portuguese  brigade  (Coleman).  Two  more  foreign  corps 
belonging  to  the  German  Legion  \  formed  the  second  brigade 
of  the  7th  Division,  but  did  not  join  it  till  the  summer, 
being  distracted  meanwhile  to  another  field  of  operations. 

The  7th  Division  was  for  some  time  looked  on  as  the 
“  ugly  duckling,”  or  backward  child  of  the  army.  Having 
only  two  British  to  four  foreign  battalions,  it  was  sometimes 
called  “  the  Mongrels  ;  ”  its  first  debut  in  action  at  Puentes 
de  Onoro  was  not  a  very  happy  one,  as  it  was  the  outlying 
flank  force  that  was  turned  and  partly  cut  up  by  French 
cavalry.  After  this  it  was  never  seriously  engaged  in 
battle  for  more  than  a  year.  Moreover,  its  foreigners 
earned  a  bad  reputation  for  their  habit  of  desertion — a 

*  l/50tli,  1/7 1st,  and  l/92nd. 

f  51st,  85th,  with  the  Chasseurs  Britanniques  and  the  Brunswick 
Oels  Jiigers.  The  68th  joined  in  July,  but  the  85th  went  homo  in 
October. 

J  1st  and  2nd  Light  Battalions,  K.G.L.,  which  landed  very  late, 
joined  Boresford’s  army  in  Estrcmadura,  and  only  united  with  then- 
proper  division  in  Juno. 


172  Organization  :  Brigades  and  Divisions 


habit  not  altogether  unnatural,  for  they  had  been  largely 
recruited  from  the  pontoons  and  prison-camps  in  England.* 
Hence  a  cruel  joke  in  the  list  of  divisional  nicknames 
given  by  several  Peninsular  diarists.  The  sobriquets  run  : 
Light  Division,  The  Division  ;  no  doubt  the  title  given 
to  it  by  its  own  proud  members.  First  Division  :  “  The 
Gentlemen’s  Sons,”  because  it  contained  one,  and  after¬ 
wards  two,  brigades  of  the  Foot  Guards.  The  Second 
Division  is  called  “  the  Observing  Division,”  because  it  was 
so  often  detached  as  a  containing  force  against  Soult,  on  the 
side  of  Estremadura  and  Andalusia,  while  the  main  body 
was  more  actively  engaged  on  the  side  of  Leon.  So  much 
was  this  its  duty  that  it  was  only  present  at  one  general 
action,  Albuera,  between  the  autumn  of  1810  and  the  summer 
of  1813.  There  were  some  brilliant  episodes  between  those 
dates,  such  as  the  surprise  of  Arroyo  dos  Molinos,  and 
the  storming  of  the  forts  at  Almaraz.  The  3rd  Division  was 
called  “  the  Fighting  Division,”  its  fiery  leader,  Picton, 
having  led  it  into  the  forefront  of  the  battle  both  at  Bussaco 
and  Fuentes  de  Onoro,  not  to  speak  of  smaller  fights  like 
Redinha  or  El  Bodon  ;  it  had  also  done  the  hardest  of 
work  at  the  storms  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo  and  Badajoz.  The 
4th  Division  was  called  the  “Supporting  Division ;  ”  I  suppose 
because  it  was  sent  off  to  support  the  2nd  in  Estremadura, 
and  most  effectually  discharged  that  duty  at  Albuera.  f  The 
5th  division  was  called  “  the  Pioneers,”  a  name  whose 
source  I  cannot  explain  :  possibly  it  refers  to  some  road¬ 
making  work  done  in  1810.  The  6th  was  the  “  Marching 
Division,”  mainly,  I  believe,  so-called  because  down  to 
Salamanca  it  was  accompanying  all  Wellington’s  great 
movements  from  north  to  south  and  south  to  north,  yet 
never  had  the  good  fortune  to  get  into  the  thick  of  the 
battle.  At  Salamanca,  however,  it  had  as  much  fighting 
as  any  man  could  crave.  The  note  to  the  7th  Division, 
however,  is  very  malicious,  being  “  We  have  heard  that 

*  See  notes  on  these  battalions  in  the  chapter  on  “ The  Auxiliaries.” 

f  After  Albuera  their  nickname  was  changed  to  “  theEntliusiastics.” 


Rearrangement  of  Units 


173 


there  is  a  Seventh  Division,  but  we  have  never  seen  it.” 
The  fact  is,  that  after  its  mishap  at  Fuentes,  and  some 
unsuccessful  siege  work  at  the  second  leaguer  of  Badajoz, 
this  unit  was  very  little  engaged  for  two  years.  In  1813, 
however,  it  was  gloriously  prominent  in  the  battles  of  the 
Pyrenees,  and  the  dash  at  the  French  line,  made  byBams’s 
brigade,  was  called  by  Wellington  about  the  best  and  most 
effective  attack  that  he  had  ever  seen. 

After  the  creation  of  the  7th  Division  in  March,  1811, 
Wellington  never  again  organized  a  new  divisional  unit. 
He  received,  of  course,  a  great  number  of  new  battalions 
during  the  years  1811-12-13,  but  contented  himself  with 
adding  them  in  ones  or  twos  to  existing  brigades,  or  at 
most  gave  two  or  three  of  them  as  a  fresh  brigade  to  one  of 
the  old  divisions.  The  former  practice  was  the  more  usual : 
the  only  instances  of  the  latter  that  I  recall  being  that  in 

1812  the  1st  Division  got  a  second  Guards  brigade,  and  in 

1813  a  new  line  brigade  (Lord  Aylmer’s)  from  reinforcements 
that  had  just  come  out.  The  increase  of  the  total  number 
of  battalions  at  the  front  was  not  so  great  as  might  have 
been  expected,  because  from  time  to  time  corps  that  had 
got  thinned  down  almost  to  the  point  of  extinction,  were 
sent  back  to  England  to  be  recruited  and  reorganized.  The 
number  of  British  battalions  (including  the  Kang’s  German 
Legion  and  two  other  foreign  corps)  with  Wellington’s  field 
army  in  March,  1811,  was  fifty-eight ;  in  March,  1814,  it  was 
no  more  than  sixty-five,  a  gain  of  only  seven  units.  There 
had  been  a  considerable  exchange  of  service  between  the  1st 
and  2nd  battalion  of  regiments — in  several  cases  when  the 
2nd  battalion  had  been  the  original  unit  in  the  Peninsular 
Army,  it  went  home  when  the  first  battalion  came  out, 
returning  as  a  mere  cadre  of  officers  and  sergeants,  after 
turning  over  its  serviceable  rank  and  file  to  the  newly- 
arrived  sister  unit.* 

*  This  happened  with  the  5th,  28th,  38th,  39th,  42nd.  The2/4th 
and  2/52nd  came  out  for  a  short  time,  and  then  discharged  their 
serviceable  men  into  their  1st  battalion,  and  went  home. 


174  Organization  :  Brigades  and  Divisions 


There  was  only  two  more  considerable  rearrangements  of 
the  internal  organization  of  a  division.  One  took  place  in 
May,  1811,  owing  to  the  fearful  losses  suffered  by  the 
2nd  Division  at  Albuera.  Of  the  seven  battalions  forming 
the  brigades  of  Colborne  and  Hoghton,  which  had  been  so 
dreadfully  mauled  in  holding  the  all-important  heights, 
two  were  sent  home,  and  the  four  others  shrank  into  a 
single  brigade.  To  fill  the  place  of  the  vanished  unit  a 
whole  brigade  (Howard’s)  was  transferred  from  the  1st  to 
the  2nd  Division,  and  became  part  of  it  for  the  rest  of  the 
war.  There  was  also  a  shifting  about  of  two  brigades 
from  one  unit  to  another  during  the  winter  of  1812-13, 
after  the  Burgos  retreat. 

The  normal  divisional  organization,  however,  remained 
unchanged  from  1811  onwards,  viz.  with  three  exceptions, 
each  division  for  the  remaining  three  years  of  the  war  con¬ 
sisted  of  two  British  brigades  and  one  Portuguese,  the 
former  having  usually  three  battalions  each,  and  the  latter 
five.  This  rule  worked  for  the  3rd,  4th,  5th,  6th,  7th 
divisions.  The  Light  Division,  smaller  than  the  rest,  had 
only  three  (or  three  and  a  half)  British  battalions,  and  two 
of  Portuguese  ca9adores.  The  1st  Division  alone  had  no 
Portuguese  attached,  but  one  of  its  three  (after  1813  four) 
brigades  was  foreign,  consisting  of  the  line  battalions  of  the 
King’s  German  Legion.  The  2nd  Division  (as  explained 
above)  had  three  British  brigades  and  no  Portuguese,  but 
to  it  was  attached  Hamilton’s  (and  in  1812-14  Ashworth’s) 
Portuguese,  so  that  it  did  not  vary  from  the  normal 
arrangement  so  much  as  the  1st  Division. 

It  would  not  be  quite  accurate  to  say  that  a  British 
brigade  always  had  precisely  three  battalions.  Several  had 
four,  one  five,  a  few  appeared  with  only  two,  but  Welling¬ 
ton  generally  made  these  last  up  to  the  three-battalion  total 
as  soon  as  he  was  able,  save  in  two  cases.  In  the  Guards 
brigades  of  the  1st  Division  the  two  battalions  were  always 
so  strong  that  between  them  they  gave  1800  or  2000 
bayonets  at  the  beginning  of  a  campaign — which  was  as 


The  Anglo-Portuguese  Division  175 


much  as  most  three-battalion  brigades  produced.  More¬ 
over,  there  was  an  objection  to  brigading  together  units  of 
the  Guards  and  of  the  line.  In  the  Light  Division  the 
l/43rd  and  l/52nd  were  also  very  strong  and  well  recruited : 
each  formed  the  nucleus  of  a  small  brigade,  of  which  the 
rest  was  composed  of  a  Portuguese  ca<;ador  battalion  and 
a  certain  number  (often  six)  companies  of  the  95th  Rifles. 

Roughly  speaking,  then,  an  Anglo-Portuguese  division 
usually  amounted  to  something  under  6000  men,  save  the 
Light  Division,  which  numbered  under  4000,  and  the 
1st  Division,  which  in  1810,  and  again  in  1813,  had  four 
brigades,  and  over  7000  men.  Of  the  5500  or  5800  men  in 
one  of  the  normal  divisions  about  3500  were  British  and 
2000  (or  a  little  more)  Portuguese.  The  2nd  Division, 
however,  was  a  double-unit,  with  5500  British,  and  attached 
to  it  6500  of  Hamilton’s  and  Ashworth’s  Portuguese. 

The  mixture  of  nationalities  in  the  divisions,  normal 
with  the  infantry,  was  nearly  unknown  in  the  cavalry  arm. 
The  very  few  Portuguese  regiments  which  took  the  field — 
never  more  than  seven,  I  believe — often  four  only — were 
normally  kept  separate.  Wellington,  for  the  first  three  years 
of  the  war,  had  so  few  cavalry  regiments  of  either  nation 
that  there  was  no  possibility  of  dividing  them  into  divisions. 
In  1809,  as  has  been  already  stated,*  there  were  only  in  the 
Peninsula  six  British  cavalry  regiments,  divided  into  three 
weak  brigades.  Only  one  more  corps  joined  them  in  1810, 
and  in  the  spring  campaigns  of  1811,  when  he  had  left  three 
regiments  with  Beresford  in  the  south,  he  had  only  four  to 
take  with  him  for  the  pursuit  of  Massena  and  the  battle  of 
Puentes  de  Onoro — a  miserable  provision — 1500  sabres  for 
an  army  of  over  30,000  men,  about  a  fourth  of  the  proper 
proportion  in  those  days. 

It  was  not  till  later  in  1811  that  Wellington  got  cavalry 
reinforcements  which  more  than  doubled  his  mounted 
strength,  bringing  him  up  to  fifteen  regiments  of  British 
and  German  horse.  He  did  then  at  last  divide  them  into 
*  See  p.  166. 


176  Organization  :  Brigades  and  Divisions 


two  divisions,  one  of  eleven  regiments,  which  followed  his 
main  army,  the  other  of  four  regiments  only,  which  he  left 
with  Hill  in  Estremadura.  But  no  Portuguese  regiments 
were  put  into  either — though  he  took  one  brigade  with 
himself  (D’Urban’s)  for  the  Salamanca  campaign,  and  left 
two  brigades  (or  four  regiments)  with  the  southern  force 
(those  of  Otway  and  Madden). 

But  the  organization  in  two  cavalry  divisions  was 
dropped  in  the  spring  of  1813 — Wellington  had  had  sicken¬ 
ing  experience  of  the  incapacity  of  General  Erskine,  who 
commanded  the  small  second  division,  and,  Erskine  being 
now  dead,  for  the  rest  of  the  war  all  the  seven  cavalry 
brigades  were  theoretically  again  made  into  one  division, 
under  Wellington’s  chosen  cavalry  leader,  Sir  Stapleton 
Cotton.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  Cotton  was  not  allowed  any 
independent  command  of  them,  and  the  brigades  were 
moved  in  twos  and  threes  under  the  direct  orders  of  the 
commander-in-chief.  Wellington  never  used  his  cavalry 
in  mass  for  any  great  separate  manoeuvre.  He  employed 
them  for  scouting,  for  covering  his  front,  and  for  protecting 
his  flanks,  sometimes  (but  rarely  and  in  small  units)  for  a 
blow  in  battle,  such  as  that  which  Le  Marchant’s  heavy 
dragoons  gave  at  Salamanca,  or  Bock’s  Germans  at  Garcia 
Hernandez  on  the  following  day.  But  of  this  we  have 
already  spoken  when  dealing  with  the  general  character 
of  Wellington’s  tactics. 

The  rule  of  the  combination  of  British  and  Portuguese 
units  which  prevailed  in  the  infantry,  though  not  in  the 
cavalry,  was  to  be  found  in  the  artillery  also.  In  1810, 
when  Wellington  drafted  a  Portuguese  brigade  of  foot 
into  each  of  his  divisions,  he  also  attached  to  several  of 
them  batteries  of  Portuguese  artillery.  So  small  was  his 
allowance  of  British  gunners,  that  in  1811,  when  he  had 
created  his  two  last  infantry  divisions,  he  would  not  have 
been  able  to  provide  one  field  battery  for  each  of  his  eight 
units,  unless  he  had  drawn  largely  for  help  on  his  allies. 
At  the  time  of  Fuentes  de  Onoro  and  Albuera  there  were  in 


Distribution  or  Batteries 


177 


the  field  only  three  British  horse  artillery  batteries  (attached 
to  the  cavalry  and  the  Light  Division)  and  five  British  field 
batteries  attached  to  infantry  divisions.  The  3rd  and  7th 
Divisions  had  only  Portuguese  guns  allotted  to  them.  But 
by  utilizing  the  very  efficient  artillery  of  the  allied  nation, 
to  the  extent  of  eight  units,  Wellington  was  able  to  put 
thirteen  field  batteries  in  line,  which  enabled  him  to  provide 
the  2nd,  3rd,  5th,  6th,  and  Hamilton’s  Portuguese  divisions 
with  two  batteries  apiece,  the  1st,  4th,  and  7th  with  one 
each.  The  two  nations  were  worked  as  successfully  in 
unison  in  the  artillery  as  in  the  infantry  organization. 

Owing  to  the  arrival  of  new  batteries  from  home  Welling¬ 
ton  was  able,  in  1812,  not  only  to  allot  one  or  two  field 
batteries  to  every  division  except  the  Light  (which  kept  its 
old  horse  artillery  troop,  that  of  Major  Ross),  but  to  collect 
a  small  reserve  which  belonged  to  the  whole  army  and  not 
to  any  particular  division.  In  1813-14  he  was  stronger 
still,  though  the  mass  of  guns  of  which  he  could  dispose 
was  never  so  powerful  in  proportion  to  his  whole  army  as 
that  which  Napoleon  habitually  employed. 


CHAPTER  X 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  ARMY  :  THE  REGIMENTS 

In  the  year  1809,  when  Wellington  assumed  command  in 
Portugal,  the  infantry  of  the  British  Army  consisted  of 
3  regiments  of  Foot  Guards  and  103  regiments  of  the  line, 
beside  10  battalions  of  the  King’s  German  Legion,  the  8 
West  India  regiments,  the  8  Veteran  Battalions,  and  some 
ten  more  miscellaneous  foreign  and  colonial  corps.  Of  the 
103  regiments  of  the  line  the  majority,  61,  had  2  battalions. 
Of  the  remainder  one  (the  60th  or  Royal  Americans)  had  7 
battalions,  one  (the  1st  Royal  Scots)  4,  three  (the  14th, 
27th,  and  95th)  3  each,  while  the  remaining  37  were 
single-battalion  regiments.*  As  the  1st  Foot  Guards  had 
3  battalions,  and  the  Coldstream  and  Scots  Fusiliers  2  each, 
the  total  number  of  British  battalions  embodied  was  186. 

The  reason  for  the  curious  discrepancy  between  the 
number  of  battalions  in  the  various  regiments  was  that 
(putting  aside  the  Guards,  the  Royal  Scots,  and  the  Royal 
Americans,  who  had  always  more  battalions  than  one,  even 
in  the  eighteenth  century)  the  British  Army  at  the  time  of 
the  rupture  of  the  Peace  of  Amiens  in  1803  had  been  com¬ 
posed  of  single-battalion  regiments.  On  the  outbreak  of 
war  fifty  regiments  in  the  British  Isles  and  other  home 
stations  were  ordered  to  raise  second  battalions, |  and  a 

*  These  thirty-seven  were  the  2nd,  12th,  13th,  16th,  17th,  19th, 
20th,  22nd,  29th,  33rd,  37th,  41st,  46th,  49tli,  61st,  54th,  55th,  64tli, 
66th,  68th,  70th,  74th,  75th,  76th,  77th,  80th,  85th,  86th,  93rd,  94th, 
and  97th  to  103rd. 

f  Which  were  intended  for  home  service  only,  and  were  called 
the  “  Army  of  Reserve.”  But  ere  long  they  were  utilized  for  general 
service. 


179 


Establishment  of  the  Line 

little  later  the  same  directions  were  given  to  a  few  more. 
Two  corps  (the  14th  and  27th)  succeeded  in  raising  two  fresh 
battalions,  as  did  also  the  Royal  Scots,  which  was  already 
a  double  battalion  corps.  But  few  of  the  regiments  serving 
beyond  seas  were  ordered  to  carry  out  the  same  expansion, 
owing  to  their  remoteness  from  recruiting  centres  ;  they 
remained  single-battalion  regiments,  save  that  the  35th, 
47th,  and  78th,  though  they  were  quartered  respectively  in 
Malta,  Bermuda,  and  India,  provided  themselves  with  a 
second  battalion.  Seven  new  regiments  raised  in  or  after 
1804  (these  numbered  97  to  103)  remained  from  the  first  to 
the  last  single-battalion  corps. 

A  considerable  number  of  the  corps  which  were  on 
foreign  or  colonial  service  in  1803-4  had  returned  to  Great 
Britain  since  that  time.  But  they  were  never,  save  in  a 
very  few  cases,  able  to  raise  additional  battalions,  the 
number  of  such  created  after  1805  being  only  eight  *  in  all. 
Hence  the  regiments  from  which  Wellington’s  Peninsular 
Army  was  drawn  must  be  divided  with  care  into  one- 
battalion  corps  and  those  which  owned  more  than  one 
battalion. 

The  Estimates  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons  in 
1809  show  that  there  were  several  “  establishments  ”  of 
varying  strength  for  regiments  in  Great  Britain  and  other 
European  stations.  For  corps  absent  in  the  East  Indies 
there  was  a  wholly  different  set.f 

A  regiment  of  two  battalions,  with  both  of  them  on 
active  service,  stands  on  the  higher  establishment  at  either 
2250  or  2031,  or  thereabouts.  When  the  senior  battalion 
was  sent  on  active  service  it  was  generally  completed  to 
1000  rank  and  file,  which,  with  sergeants,  officers,  and 
musicians,  should  have  made  up  a  total  of  over  1100.  Its 
less  effective  men  were  drafted  into  the  second  battalion, 

*  The  regiments  which  raised  belated  second  battalions  were  the 
12th  (in  1813),  the  22nd  (in  1814),  the  37th  (in  1811),  the  41st  (in 
1814),  the  73rd  (in  1809),  the  86th  (in  1814),  the  93rd  (in  1814).  The 
95th  (in  1809),  and  the  56th  in  1813,  raised  a  third  battalion. 

t  For  all  the  establishments  see  Table  in  Appendix  I. 


180  Organization  :  The  Regiments 

which,  if  the  establishment  was  full  (which  was  by  no 
means  always  the  case),  would  have  left  somewhat  over  900 
for  the  second  battalion.  And,  indeed,  we  find  such  figures 
as  906,  929,  916,  etc.,  given  for  the  strength  of  several 
second  battalions  whose  senior  sister-unit  had  gone  overseas. 

But  these  900  and  odd  men  of  all  ranks  now  included 
not  only  the  weak  and  ineffective  men  of  the  second  bat¬ 
talion,  but  also  those  of  the  first.  Therefore  if  a  second 
battalion  was  sent  out  to  the  war,  it  had  to  leave  behind 
a  disproportionately  large  number  of  men  unfit  for  active 
service,  and  would  be  lucky  if  it  sailed  for  Portugal  with 
700  bayonets.  Many  cases  are  on  record  where  a  far 
smaller  number  disembarked  at  Lisbon  or  elsewhere. 
More  than  200  would  often  have  to  be  left  behind  to  form 
the  depot,  wherefore  second  battalions  were  usually  much 
weaker  than  first  battalions  when  at  the  front. 

For  single-battalion  regiments,  such  as  the  2nd,  29th, 
51st  or  97th,  we  find  very  various  “  establishments  ”  given 
in  the  Army  Estimates  of  1809.  They  vary  down  from 
1151  to  696  ;  one  or  two  exceptional  corps  are  even  smaller. 
As  a  rule,  it  may  be  taken  that  the  ideal  would  be  to  recruit 
such  a  corps,  when  it  was  sent  on  active  service,  up  to  the 
higher  figure  :  but  having  to  leave  200  men  or  so  at  home — 
the  inefficients  who  were  drafted  off  for  the  dep6t — it  would 
be  lucky  if  it  landed  800  in  the  Peninsula.  And  to  keep 
up  the  battalion  the  depot  could  not  always  suffice  ;  it  was 
full  of  unserviceable  men,  and  could  only  send  out  recruits 
newly  gathered. 

Single-battalion  regiments  not  on  active  service  are 
those  which  are  found  with  the  smaller  establishments — of 
such  figures  as  716,  696,  etc.  Not  being  expected  to  take 
the  field,  they  have  not  been  brought  up  to  the  higher 
establishment,  either  by  drafts  from  the  militia  or  by 
specially  vigorous  recruiting. 

The  three  regiments  of  Foot  Guards  had  much  higher 
establishments  than  any  line  battalion.  The  three  bat¬ 
talions  of  the  1st  Guards  mustered  no  less  than  4619  of 


Weakness  of  Second  Battalions  181 


all  ranks,  the  Coldstream  and  Scots  Fusiliers  each  2887. 
Thus  the  former  could  easily  send  abroad  two  strong 
battalions  of  1100  or  1200  men  apiece,  and  the  two  latter 
one  each,  while  leaving  behind  a  battalion  and  a  big  depot 
on  which  to  draw  for  recruits  for  the  active  service  units. 
Therefore  a  Guards  battalion  in  the  Peninsula  seldom  fell 
under  800  men,  and  was  sometimes  up  to  1000.  The 
Cadiz  detachment  of  the  Guards,  which  fought  at  Barrosa, 
was  made  up  from  the  home  battalions  as  a  sort  of  extra  con¬ 
tribution.  It  consisted  of  six  companies  of  the  1st  Guards, 
two  of  the  Coldstream,  and  three  of  the  Scots  Fusiliers. 
They  are  sometimes  called  a  brigade — for  which  they  were 
too  small  in  reality — sometimes  a  provisional  regiment. 
Their  total  force  was  about  1200  or  1300  of  all  ranks. 

With  these  figures  before  us,  we  begin  to  see  why  indi¬ 
vidual  battalions  came  and  went  in  the  Peninsular  Army. 
A  regiment  which  had  two  battalions,  one  at  home  and  one 
in  Portugal,  was  always  able  to  keep  up  the  strength  of 
the  service  unit  by  regular  and  copious  drafts  from  the 
home  unit.  Or  if  the  original  one  serving  in  the  Peninsula 
was  a  second  battalion,  the  first  could  be  sent  out  to  relieve 
it.  Second  battalions  were  never  sent  out  to  replace  first 
battalions,  it  being  always  the  rule  that  the  senior  unit  had  a 
right  to  preference  for  active  service.  But  occasionally  both 
battalions  of  a  regiment  were  absent  from  Great  Britain, 
and  in  a  few  cases  they  were  both  in  the  Peninsula.*  When 
this  happened  the  second  battalion  was  invariably  sent 
home  after  a  time,  discharging  its  effective  rank  and  file 
into  the  sister  battalion,  and  returning  to  Great  Britain  as 
a  cadre  of  officers  and  sergeants,  with  a  few  old,  unservice¬ 
able,  or  nearly  time-expired  rank  and  file. 

Having  laid  down  these  general  rules,  we  shall  see  how 
it  came  to  pass  that  of  Wellington’s  original  army  of  1809 
some  battalions  stopped  with  him  for  the  whole  war,  while 
others  were  successively  sent  away  and  replaced  by  fresh 
units. 

*  This  was  the  case  with  the  7th,  48th,  52nd  and  88th  in  1811, 


182 


Organization  :  The  Regiments 


The  greater  part  of  the  British  Army  which  had  been  in 
the  Peninsula  in  1808  went  home  from  Corunna  at  the  end 
of  Sir  John  Moore’s  retreat.  Of  these  units  some  never 
came  back  at  all  to  share  in  Wellington’s  triumphs  ;  * * * § 
others  returned  only  in  time  to  see  the  end  of  the  war  in 
1812,  1813,  and  1814. f  Only  Craufurd’s  three  famous 
light  infantry  battalions,  the  l/43rd,  l/52nd,  and  l/95th 
came  back,  after  an  absence  of  no  more  than  a  few  months, 
in  the  summer  of  1809. 

The  real  nucleus  of  the  permanent  Peninsular  Army  was 
composed,  not  of  the  regiments  which  had  operated  under 
Moore,  but  of  that  small  fragment  of  the  original  landing  force 
of  1808  which  had  not  followed  Moore  to  Salamanca,  Saha- 
gun,  and  Corunna,  but  remained  behind  in  the  Peninsula.^ 
To  this  mere  remnant  of  eleven  battalions  and  one  cavalry 
regiment  there  were  added  the  reinforcements  which  pre¬ 
ceded  or  accompanied  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley  when  he  came 
to  take  up  the  command  in  April,  1809,  which  amounted  to 
twelve  battalions  more,  with  four  regiments  of  cavalry.§ 
The  whole,  when  first  divided  into  brigades  and  organized 
as  an  operating  force  at  Coimbra  on  May  4,  1809,  only 
amounted  to  23,000  men — a  modest  nucleus  for  the  army 
which  was  destined  not  only  to  save  Portugal,  but  ulti¬ 
mately  to  thrust  out  of  Spain  a  body  of  invaders  which  at 

*  The  3rd  Hussars,  K.G.L.,  2/14th,  2/23rd,  2/43rd,  2/81st,  nevor 
returned  to  serve  under  Wellington  in  1809-14. 

f  In  1810  the  following  returned  to  Portugal  3/lst,  l/4th,  l/9th, 
l/50th,  1/7 1st,  l/79th.  In  1811  the  following  :  2nd,  l/2Gth,  l/28th, 
l/32nd,  1/3 6th,  51st,  2/52nd,  1st  and  2nd  Light  K.G.L.  In  1812 
the  following:  l/5th,  l/6th,  20th,  l/38th,  l/42nd,  2/59th,  l/82nd, 
1/9 1st.  In  1813  the  7th,  10th,  15th,  18th  Hussars,  the  first  and 
third  battalions  of  the  1st  Foot  Guards,  and  the  76th. 

$  These  were  the  l/3rd,  2/9th,  29th,  l/40th,  l/45th,  5/60th, 
97th,  the  1st,  2nd,  5th,  7th  Line  Battalions  of  the  K.G.L.,  and 
the  20th  Light  Dragoons,  the  last-named  incomplete. 

§  The  regiments  which  arrived  with  Wellesley,  or  before  him, 
during  the  spring  and  the  preceding  winter  of  1808-1809,  were 
3/27th,  2/31st,  and  14th  Light  Dragoons,  during  the  winter  ;  in 
April,  1st  Coldstream  Guards,  1st  Scots  Fusilier  Guards,  2/7th, 
2/30th,  2/4 8th,  2/53rd,  2/66th,  2/83rd,  2/87th,  1/88%  16t,h  Light 
Dragoons,  3rd  Dragoon  Guards,  4th  Dragoons. 


The  Original  Peninsular  Regiments  183 


this  moment  amounted  to  over  200,000  men,  and  which  in 
1810-11  was  brought  up  to  300,000,  a  figure  which  it 
maintained  till  drafts  began  to  be  made  upon  it  for  the 
Russian  War  in  1812.* 

Moore’s  host  had  been,  as  he  himself  wrote  to  Castlereagh 
in  a  noteworthy  dispatch,  not  so  much  a  British  army  as 
the  only  British  army  fit  for  the  field.  Since  no  more  than 
an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  this  picked  force  was  able  to 
return  to  the  Peninsula  at  once,  it  followed  that  Wellesley’s 
army  of  1809  was  composed,  for  its  greater  part,  of  troops 
that  had  been  considered  of  secondary  quality,  and  less 
fit  for  service  than  the  battalions  which  had  been  put  hors 
de  combat  for  a  long  space  by  the  exhaustion  which  they  had 
suffered  in  the  terrible  retreat  to  Corunna.  Excluding  the 
Guards  and  the  King’s  German  Legion  units,  Wellesley’s 
Field  Army  in  July  contained  eighteen  British  battalions, 
of  which  only  six  were  first  battalions  of  regiments  of  full 
strength,  two  (the  29th  and  97th)  were  single-battalion 
corps,  and  the  remaining  ten  were  junior  battalions,  i.e. 
were  the  usually  depleted  home-service  units  of  regiments 
which  already  had  one  battalion  abroad,  or  of  which  the 
first  battalion  had  just  returned  from  Corunna  unfit  for 
immediate  use.f  It  was  an  army  whose  quality  was 
notably  inferior  to  that  of  the  force  which  had  marched 
into  Spain  under  Moore  six  months  before.  And  the 
second  battalions  were  invariably  under  strength,  because 
they  had,  until  their  unexpected  embarkation  for  the 
front,  been  engaged  in  supplying  their  sister  units  abroad 

*  Since  April  there  had  come  out  the  23rd  Light  Dragoons, 
1st  Hussars,  K.G.L.,  l/61st,  l/48th,  2/24th  ;  but  tho  20th  Light 
Dragoons  had  been  deductod  (sent  to  Sicily),  while  the  2/9th  and 
2/30th  had  been  sent  back  to  Lisbon,  for  passage  to  Gibraltar.  Tho 
net  gain,  therefore,  between  April  and  July  was  only  one  cavalry 
regiment. 

f  To  recapitulate  again.  1st  battalions  :  l/3rd,  l/40th,  l/45th, 
l/48th,  l/61st,  l/88th.  2nd  battalions:  2/7th,  2/31st,  2/24th, 
2/48tli,  2/53rd,  2/66th,  2/83rd,  2/87th.  Other  junior  battalions  : 
3/27th  (left  at  Lisbon),  f>/60th.  Single  battalion  regiments,  29th, 
97th.  Thoro  wore  also  two  “  Battalions  of  Detachments.” 


184 


Organization  :  The  Regiments 


with  the  necessary  drafts  for  foreign  service.  Many  of 
them  were  woefully  weak  in  numbers,  showing,  instead  of 
the  theoretical  900  bayonets,  such  figures  as  638,  680,  749, 
776,  which,  after  deducting  sick  and  men  on  command, 
meant  under  600  for  the  field.  Indeed,  a  few  months 
later,  at  Talavera,*  six  of  the  second  battalions  and  both 
the  single-battalion  corps  showed  less  than  that  number 
present,  all  ranks  included. 

Bearing  in  mind  the  fact  that  a  British  regiment,  owing 
to  the  difficulties  of  recruiting,  in  a  time  when  men  were 
scarce  and  bounties  high,  could  not  as  a  rule  provide  drafts 
to  keep  up  to  strength  more  than  one  battalion  on  active 
service,  we  can  already  foresee  the  fates  that  were  destined 
to  attend  the  battalions  of  Wellington’s  original  Peninsular 
Army.  Nearly  all  the  second  battalions  in  time  were  worn 
down  by  the  exhaustion  of  war  to  a  figure  so  low  that  they 
could  no  lender  be  worked  as  regular  battalion  units.  When 
they  had  readied  this  stage  one  of  two  things  happened 
to  them.  If  their  first  battalions  were  available,  being  on 
home  service  and  fit  for  the  field,  they  came  out  to  the 
Peninsula  and  replaced  the  depleted  second  battalions. 
But  if  the  first  battalion  of  any  corps  was  already  abroad  in 
India  or  elsewhere,  the  Peninsular  battalion  was,  during 
the  earlier  years  of  the  war,  sent  home  to  recruit,  and  its 
regimental  number  disappeared  from  Wellington’s  muster- 
rolls.  In  the  later  years  of  the  war  this  was  not  so  regularly 
done  :  for  reasons  which  will  be  explained,  several  of  the 
veteran  second  battalions,  which  had  survived  at  the  front 
till  1812,  were  retained  with  the  army,  but  cut  down  to 
four  companies  each,  and  worked  together  in  pairs  to  make 
a  unit  of  serviceable  size.  Of  the  eight  original  second 
battalions  of  1809,  two  were  drafted  into  their  first  battalion, 
which  had  come  out  to  the  Peninsula  ;  f  one  (2/87th)  was 
sent  away  for  a  time  to  Cadiz,  though  it  returned  to  the  field 

*  The  strongest  battalions  at  Talavera  were  l/3rd  Foot  Guards 
1019,  1st  Coldstream  970,  l/48th  807  ;  the  weakest  were  2/GGth  52G, 
97th  502,  2/83rd  535. 

t  Viz.  2 /7th,  2/48th. 


Reinforcements  from  Home 


185 


army  in  1812  ;  four  were  cut  down  in  1811-12  to  half 
battalions.*  Only  one,  the  2/83rd,  remained  continuously 
in  the  Peninsula  as  a  full  battalion  till  the  end  of  the  war. 

The  same  fate  attended  the  single-battalion  regiments, 
which  had  no  sister  battalion  at  home  to  draw  upon,  but 
only  a  depot.  Both  the  29th  and  the  97th  went  home, 
reduced  to  skeletons,  in  1811. 

But  the  six  first-battalions  present  with  the  field  army 
in  May,  1809,  were  still  at  the  front  in  fair  strength  at  the 
termination  of  the  war  in  1814,  and  this,  though  two  of  them 
had  been  among  the  worst  sufferers  in  the  bloody  field  of 
Albuera.  Indeed,  there  is  throughout  the  war,  I  believe, 
only  one  case  in  which  the  first  battalion  of  a  complete 
regiment  went  out  to  the  front,  and  was  sent  away  before 
the  end  of  the  campaigning  in  1814. 

The  reinforcements  which  were  sent  out  to  Wellington 
from  1810  to  1812  may  be  divided  into  two  sections,  of 
which  the  larger  was  composed  of  the  rec'^anized  and 
recruited  battalions  of  Moore’s  Corunna  army.  Of  these, 
six  battalions  came  out  in  1810,  nine  in  1811,  eight  in  1812, 
and  three  in  1813-14.  The  greater  number  of  them  were 
first  battalions,  or  putting  aside  the  Guards  and  German 
Legion  units,  fifteen  out  of  twenty-three :  of  these  all  save 
one  (the  l/26th)  fought  out  the  rest  of  the  war.  Of  single¬ 
battalion  regiments  there  were  four  (2nd,  51st,  20th,  76th)  ; 
of  junior  battalions  belonging  to  corps  which  already  had 
one  battalion  abroad,  there  were  also  only  three  (3/lst, 
2/52nd,  2/59th).  Of  these  two  last  classes  the  2/52nd  was 
soon  sent  home,  after  drafting  its  men  into  the  l/52nd. 
The  2nd  got  so  depleted  that  it  was  cut  down  to  four 
companies,  and  put  into  a  provisional  battalion  in  1812  till 
the  end  of  the  war.  The  76th  on  its  return  was  only  in  the 
field  for  a  few  months  in  1813-14,  so  that  it  had  no  time 
to  get  worked  down.  The  3/lst,  though  a  junior  battalion, 
belonged  to  a  large  regiment  of  four  battalions,  and  for  that 

*  2/24th,  2/3 1st,  2/53rd,  2/GGth.  The  first  battalions  of  throo 
of  these  wero  in  the  East  Indies,  that  of  the  fourth  in  Sicily. 


186 


Organization  :  The  Regiments 


reason  never  shrank  below  its  proper  size,  there  being  a  sister 
unit  at  home  to  send  it  drafts.  We  may  therefore  say 
that,  of  the  eight  battalions  which  were  not  first  battalions 
of  full  regiments,  only  three  saw  long  service,  yet  survived 
unimpaired  to  the  peace  of  1814  (20th,  51st,  2/59th)  ;  and 
of  these  three  two  only  came  out  in  1812,  and  were  less 
than  two  years  in  the  Peninsula.  It  is  clear,  then,  that 
the  same  rule  prevailed  in  the  reinforcements  as  in  the 
original  1809  army  ;  only  first  battalions  could  be  relied 
upon  not  to  melt. 

The  battalions  sent  out  as  reinforcements  to  Wellington 
which  had  not  formed  part  of  Moore’s  Corunna  army, 
were  decidedly  less  numerous  than  the  other  class,  amount¬ 
ing  to  only  nineteen.  Of  these  six  were  first  battalions,* * * § 
eight  second  battalions, f  and  five  single  battalion  corps.  J 
All  of  the  first-named  category  fought  out  the  whole  war : 
but  several  of  the  other  two  were  sent  home,  either  when 
they  had  been  depleted  to  reinforce  their  first  battalions, 
or  for  other  reasons.  The  proportion  would  have  been 
larger  but  for  the  fact  that  several  of  them  were  among 
the  last  arrivals  in  the  Peninsula,  who  only  joined  in  the 
later  autumn  and  winter  campaigns  of  1813-14,  and  had 
not  time  to  get  worn  down.§  One  second  battalion  (2/58th) 
was  worked  as  a  four-company  unit  during  the  last  two 
years  of  the  war. 

The  net  result  of  all  the  interchange  of  battalions,  and 
of  the  sending  home  of  weak  units,  was  that  in  1814,  when 
the  struggle  with  Napoleon  had  come  to  its  end,  out  of 
fifty-six  British  line  battalions  present  at  the  front,  onty 
thirteen  were  second  battalions,  and  of  these  last  five  || 
were  (as  has  been  already  mentioned)  so  depleted  in  numbers 
that  they  were  being  worked  in  pairs,  being  each  only  four 

*  l/7th,  1/llth,  1  /23rd,  l/37th,  l/39th,  l/57th. 

t  2/5th,  2/34th,  2/38th,  2/44th,  2/47th,  2/58th,  2/62nd,  2/84th. 

j  68th,  74th,  77th,  85th,  94th. 

§  This  was  the  case  with  the  2/62nd,  77th,  l/37th,  2/84th. 

||  The  sixth  of  the  units  of  the  provisional  battalions  being  a 
single  battalion  corps,  the  2nd  Foot  or  Queen’s. 


The  Walcheeen  Regiments  187 

companies  strong,  and  not  mustering  more  than  250  or 
300  men. 

That  such  weak  half-units  were  detained  in  the  Pen¬ 
insula  was  due  to  a  resolve  of  Wellington’s,  made  after 
the  campaign  of  1811.  During  the  latter  part  of  that  year 
the  chief  of  his  worries  was  that  he  had  been  sent  out 
among  his  reinforcements  a  number  of  corps  which  had 
served  in  the  Walcheren  expedition,  where  almost  every 
man  had  the  seeds  of  ague  in  him,  from  a  sojourn  in  the 
marshes  of  Holland.  The  heat  of  the  Portuguese  summer 
and  the  torrential  rains  of  the  autumn  at  once  brought 
out  the  latent  weakness  in  the  constitution  of  men  who  were 
little  more  than  convalescents,  and  regiments  which  had 
landed  at  Lisbon  in  July  850  strong  showed  only  550  in 
the  ranks  in  October.*  So  appalling  was  the  accumulation 
of  fever  and  ague  cases  in  the  hospitals  f  that  Wellington 
wrote  home  to  beg  that  not  another  unit  which  had  been 
at  Walcheren  might  be  sent  out  to  him.  He  now  made  up 
his  mind  to  keep  old  regiments,  even  when  they  had  dwindled 
rather  low  in  numbers,  rather  than  to  send  them  home  to 
recruit,  and  to  receive  new  battalions  in  their  stead.  The 
reason  was  that  it  took  a  corps  many  months  before  it 
learnt  to  shift  for  itself,  and  to  grow  acclimatized.  During 
their  first  few  months  in  the  Peninsula,  newly  arrived  units 
always  showed  too  many  sick  and  too  many  stragglers. 
For  men  fresh  from  barrack  life  in  England  were  at  first 
prostrated  by  the  heat  of  the  climate  and  the  length  of  the 
marches.  They  had  still  to  pick  up  the  old  campaigner’s 
tricks,  and  were  very  helpless.  Veteran  troops  were  so 
superior  in  endurance  to  new  regiments  from  England, 
most  of  whom  had  been  on  the  pestilential  Walcheren 
expedition,  and  were  still  full  of  rickety  convalescents, 

*  Typical  figures  are  77th,  landed  in  July  859  of  all  rank? — 
had  only  560  present  in  September.  The  68th,  landed  about  the 
same  time,  had  233  sick  to  412  effective  :  the  51st,  landed  in  April, 
246  sick  to  251  effective  !  But  the  51st  had  lost  men  in  the  second 
siege  of  Badajoz.  The  other  two  regiments  had  not  seen  much  service, 

t  Over  14c000  njen  in  October,  1811 . 


188 


Organization  :  The  Regiments 


that  Wellington  determined  to  keep  even  remnants  of  old 
corps  accustomed  to  the  air  of  the  Peninsula,  rather  than 
to  ask  for  more  unacclimatized  battalions  from  home. 
Hence  came  the  institution,  in  the  end  of  1812,  of  two 
of  the  “  provisional  battalions  ”  already  mentioned.*  At 
an  earlier  period  of  the  war  they  would  undoubtedly  have 
been  sent  back  to  England. But  now  these  fractions  of 
depleted  veteran  corps  were  taken,  with  excellent  results, 
all  through  the  campaign  of  1812-13-14. 

It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  make  a  note  how  curious 
was  Wellington’s  attitude  in  face  of  that  rather  exceptional 
occurrence  the  appearance  of  two  strong  battalions  of  the 
same  regiment  in  his  army.  If  the  second  battalion  was 
weak,  he  soon  drafted  it  into  the  first  and  sent  it  home.  But 
when,  from  some  chance,  both  had  full  ranks,  it  did  not  by 
any  means  always  strike  him  as  necessary  to  brigade  them 
together.  For  example,  the  l/7th  and  2/7th  were  both  at 
the  front  from  October,  1810,  to  July,  1811 ;  but  for  several 
months  of  the  time  one  was  in  the  4th  Division,  the  other  in 
the  1st.  A  still  more  striking  instance  is  that  of  the  48th. 
Its  two  battalions  were  both  from  their  first  arrival  placed 
in  the  2nd  Division,  but  they  served  from  June,  1809,  to 
May,  1811,  in  different  brigades  of  it.  j  The  occasions  when 
the  two  battalions  of  the  same  regiment  served  for  any 

*  Wellington  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  War  (Lord  Bathurst), 
“  I  assure  you  that  some  of  the  best  battalions  with  the  army  are  the 
provisional  battalions.  I  have  lately  seen  two  of  these  engaged, 
that  formed  of  the  2/24th  and  2/58th,  and  that  formed  from  the  2nd 
Queen’s  and  2/53rd  :  it  is  impossible  for  any  troops  to  behave  better. 
The  same  arrangement  could  now  be  applied  with  great  advantage 
to  the  51st  and  68th,  and  also  to  other  regiments  ”  ( Dispatches ,  x. 
p.  629).  There  was  another  “  provisional  battalion  ”  composed  of 
the  2/30th  and  2/44th  for  a  short  time  in  1812-13. 

f  Probably  a  year  later  Wellington  would  not  have  allowed  the 
29th  and  97th,  both  old  single  battalion  regiments  sent  home  after 
Albuera,  to  depart,  but  would  have  worked  them  together  as  a 
“  provisional  battalion.”  He  expresses  great  regret  in  his  private 
correspondence  at  losing  two  excellent  units  because  they  had 
fallen  to  about  250  men  each. 

\  After  Albuera,  where  they  both  suffered  heavily,  the  2nd  was 
sent  home,  discharging  its  serviceable  men  into  the  1st,  which  was 
the  first  connection  with  the  sister-battalion  that  it  had. 


PLATE  V 


Officer  of  Rifles.  Private,  Infantry  of  the  Line. 

1809.  i8oq. 


Fate  of  Second  Battalions 


189 


time  in  one  brigade  were  very  rare — I  only  know  of  the 
cases  of  the  1st  and  3rd  battalions  of  the  Foot  Guards  in 
1813-14,  of  the  two  battalions  of  the  52nd  between  March, 
1811,  and  March,  1812,  and  of  those  of  the  7th  Fusiliers, 
who  (after  some  service  apart)  had  been  brigaded  together 
in  the  4th  Division  six  months  before  Albuera.  In  the  last 
two  cases  the  first  battalion  presently  absorbed  the  second, 
which  was  sent  home  as  a  skeleton  cadre  when  its  strength 
at  last  began  to  run  low.  All  other  cases  of  juxtaposition 
were  so  short  that  it  would  seem  that  Wellington  only 
brought  the  two  battalions  together  for  the  purpose  of 
drafting  the  second  into  the  first  at  the  earliest  convenient 
moment.  In  this  way  the  2/88th  (long  in  garrison  at 
Lisbon)  were  brought  up  to  the  front  to  be  amalgamated 
in  less  than  four  months  with  the  l/88th  (March-July,  1811). 
The  l/5th,  coming  out  in  the  summer  of  1812,  seems  to  have 
served  along  with  the  2/5th  for  about  the  same  number  of 
months,  the  latter  being  sent  home  in  October.  The  l/38th 
similarly  arrived  at  about  the  same  time,  and  served  from 
June  to  November  beside  the  2/38th,  which  then  departed. 
These  are  very  different  cases  from  those  of  the  two 
battalions  of  the  7th,  the  48th,  and  the  52nd,  all  of  which 
were  present  for  a  year  or  more  together  in  the  army. 

The  working  unit  of  the  Peninsular  Army  was  always 
the  ten-company  battalion,  commanded  by  a  lieutenant- 
colonel.  When,  as  in  the  exceptional  cases  just  named,  it 
chanced  that  two  battalions  of  a  regiment  got  together,  the 
senior  of  the  two  commanding  officers  had  no  authority 
over  the  other.  Both  were  directly  responsible  to  the 
brigadier.  The  battalion  theoretically  had  thirty-five  officers 
and  1000  rank  and  file,  besides  sergeants  and  drummers. 
A  pestilent  practice  prevailed  in  all  British  general  returns, 
of  giving  in  statistics  of  the  larger  sort  only  the  number 
of  rank  and  file  ( i.e .  corporals  and  privates),  officers,  ser¬ 
geants,  and  musicians  being  all  omitted.  To  bring  the 
figures  up  to  the  real  general  total  in  such  a  case,  an  allow¬ 
ance  of  about  one-eighth  or  one-ninth  has  to  be  added  to 


190 


Organization  :  The  Regiments 


the  number  given.  Fortunately  detailed  returns  of  all 
ranks  are  always  available,  when  absolute  correctness  is 
required,  from  the  fortnightly  general  states  at  the  Record 
Office. 

The  theoretical  establishment  of  about  1150  of  all  ranks 
for  a  first  battalion  was,  of  course,  hardly  ever  seen  in  the 
field.  Regiments  which  landed  at  Lisbon  with  a  full 
complement  soon  dwindled,  even  before  they  got  to  the 
front,  and  nothing  was  rarer  than  a  battalion  in  line  of 
battle  with  a  total  strength  in  the  four  figures.*  A  good 
well-managed  corps  which  had  not  been  in  action  of  late, 
and  had  not  been  stationed  in  an  unhealthy  cantonment, 
might  keep  up  to  700  and  even  800  men  throughout  a 
campaign.  The  Guards  battalions,  which  had  a  decidedly 
larger  establishment  than  those  of  the  line,  were  frequently 
up  to  900  men  or  more. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  battalion  which  had  seen  much 
lighting,  which  had  not  received  its  drafts  regularly,  and 
had  long  starved  on  the  bleak  mountains  of  Beira,  or 
sweltered  in  the  pestilential  valley  of  the  Guadiana,  often 
worked  down  to  450  men  or  less,  even  if  it  were  a  first 
battalion  which  had  landed  with  its  full  1000  rank  and  file. 
A  second  battalion  under  similar  circumstances  might 
shrink  to  250  or  300.  At  the  end  of  the  very  fatiguing 
campaign  of  1811,  which  had  included  the  toilsome  pursuit 
of  Massena,  the  Fuentes  de  Onoro  fighting,  and  the  long 
tarrying  on  the  Caya  during  the  unhealthy  summer  heats, 
of  forty-six  battalions  present  with  Wellington’s  main 
army  only  nine  (all  save  one  first-battalions,  and  two  of 
them  belonging  to  the  Guards)  showed  more  than  700  of  all 
ranks  present.  Sixteen  more  had  between  500  and  700, 
ten  between  400  and  500.  No  less  than  eleven  were  down 
to  the  miserable  figure  of  under  400  men,  and  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  of  these  nearly  all  were  either  second  battalions 

*  Such  figures  are,  however,  occasionally  found,  e.g.  the  l/4th 
at  Bussaco,  and  the  l/43rd  in  September,  1811,  ha  i  over  1000 
of  all  ranks.  So  had  the  l/42nd  at  Salamanca. 


The  Cavalry  Regiments 


191 


or  single-battalion  regiments  ;  there  were  six  of  the  former 
three  of  the  latter  among  them.  The  average  of  the  whole, 
it  may  be  seen,  was  about  550  men  per  unit ;  the  extreme 
variation  was  between  1005  for  the  strongest  battalion 
and  263  for  the  weakest.*  At  this  time,  it  should  be  noted, 
the  army  was  more  sickly  than  it  had  ever  been  before, 
having  over  14,000  men  in  hospital  to  29,300  present  with 
the  colours.  Wellington  was  never  again  so  encumbered 
with  sick,  save  for  one  period  of  a  few  weeks — that  which 
followed  the  end  of  the  retreat  from  Burgos  to  Ciudad 
Rodrigo  in  October-November,  1813.  During  the  first  months 
of  this  winter  the  troops,  tired  by  incessant  marching  in  the 
rain,  and  low  feeding,  sent  into  hospital  a  number  of  cases 
not  less  distressing  than  those  which  had  been  seen  in 
September,  1811.  But  a  short  period  of  rest  served  to 
re-establish  their  health,  and  in  1813-14  the  troops  were  very 
healthy,  even  during  the  trying  weeks  when  many  of  them 
were  cantoned  high  among  the  snows  of  the  Pyrenean 
passes. 

So  much  for  the  infantry  regiments.  A  few  words  as 
regards  the  cavalry  must  be  added  to  this  chapter  on 
organization.  From  first  to  last  Wellington  had  under 
him  twenty-one  regiments  of  British  horse,  besides  four 
more  of  the  light  and  heavy  cavalry  of  the  King’s  German 
Legion.  But  at  no  time  had  he  such  a  force  as  would 
be  represented  by  this  total.  He  started  in  1809  with 
eight  regiments.  Before  he  had  been  many  weeks  in 
command  one  of  his  units  (a  fractional  one,  composed  of 
two  squadrons  of  the  20th  Light  Dragoons)  was  taken 
from  him  and  shipped  off  to  Sicily.  Before  the  end  of  the 
year  another  (23rd  Light  Dragoons),  which  had  been  badly 
cut  up  at  Talavera,  and  lost  half  its  strength  there,  was  sent 
home  to  recruit.  Thus  he  had  only  six  regiments  f  on 

*  These  chanced  to  be  the  l/43rd  and  the  2/38tli  respectively. 
The  two  Guards  battalions  were  each  just  under  900  of  all  ranks 
at  this  time. 

t  3rd  Dragoon  Guards,  1st  and  4th  Dragoons,  14th  and  16th 
Light  Dragoons,  1st  Hussars,  K.G.L. 


192  Org  anization  :  The  Regiments 

January  1,  1810,  and  as  only  one  joined  him  that  year,* 
seven  was  his  total  force,  till  he  at  last  received  large 
reinforcements  in  the  late  summer  and  autumn  of  1811. 
But  he  started  the  campaign  of  1812  with  sixteen  regiments, f 
which  was  almost  the  highest  figure  that  he  was  to  own. 
Bor  although  during  the  campaign  of  1813  he  was  sent 
four  new  Hussar  regiments,  yet  at  the  same  time  four 
depleted  corps  were  sent  home  to  be  recruited  and  re¬ 
organized.  This  would  have  left  his  total  at  the  same 
figure  of  sixteen  units  as  in  1812,  if  he  had  not  also  received 
a  large  composite  regiment  (or  weak  brigade)  composed  of 
two  squadrons  from  each  of  the  three  units  of  the  House¬ 
hold  Cavalry.  By  this  addition  alone  did  his  cavalry  force 
in  1813-14  exceed  that  which  he  had  possessed  in  1812. 
If  we  reckon  the  Household  squadrons  as  roughly  equivalent 
to  two  units,  the  total  at  the  end  of  the  war  was  eighteen 
regiments. 

Unlike  the  infantry,  the  cavalry  of  the  British  Army  was 
organized  without  exception  in  isolated  units,  as  it  is  to-day. 
A  corps  sent  to  the  Peninsula  left  a  depot  squadron  behind 
it,  and  there  was  no  source  except  this  depot  from  which 
it  could  draw  recruits.  Nothing  resembling  the  sister-unit 
on  which  an  infantry  battalion  depended  was  in  existence. 
Hence  if  a  cavalry  regiment  sank  low  in  numbers,  and 
exhausted  the  drafts  which  the  depot  squadron  could  send 
out,  it  had  to  return  to  England  to  recruit.  During  the  whole 
war  only  one  corps  (the  23rd  Light  Dragoons  at  Talavera) 
suffered  a  complete  disaster,  corresponding  to  that  which 
the  2nd  Infantry  Division  incurred  at  Albuera,  and  this 
unlucky  regiment  was  sent  home  that  autumn,  when  the 
British  Army  had  retreated  to  the  Portuguese  frontier.  But 
four  others  worked  down  so  low  in  strength,  and  especially 
in  horses,  during  the  campaign  of  1812,  that,  although 

*  13th  Light  Dragoons. 

f  3rd,  4th,  5th  Dragoon  Guards ;  1st  3rd,  and  4th  Dragoons ; 
9th,  11th,  12th,  13th,  14th,  16th  Light  Dragoons;  1st  and  2nd 
Heavy  Dragoons,  K.G.L. ;  1st  and  2nd  Hussars,  K.G.L. 


Faults  of  Raw  Cavalry 


193 


they  had  none  of  them  been  thinned  down  in  a  single 
action  like  the  23rd,  they  had  become  ineffective,  and  had 
to  quit  the  Peninsula.  It  is  most  noteworthy  that  all  of 
these  four  corps  were  comparatively  recent  arrivals  ;  they 
had  come  out  in  1811,  and  in  little  over  a  single  year  had 
fallen  into  a  state  of  inefficiency  far  exceeding  that  of  the 
regiments  whose  service  dated  back  to  1809,  and  who  had 
seen  two  years  more  of  hard  campaigning.*  The  moral 
to  be  drawn  is  the  same  that  we  have  noted  with  the 
infantry :  the  regiments  which  had  served  Wellington  since 
his  first  arrival  had  become  acclimatized,  and  had  learnt 
the  tricks  of  the  old  soldier.  They  could  shift  for  them¬ 
selves,  and  (what  •was  no  less  important)  for  their  horses, 
far  better  than  any  newly-arrived  corps.  We  find  bitter 
complaints  of  the  defective  scouting  and  outpost  work  of 
the  new-comers.  After  a  petty  disaster  to  the  outlying 
pickets  of  two  of  the  lately-landed  regiments  Wellington 
wrote  :  “  This  disagreeable  circumstance  tends  to  show 
the  difference  between  old  and  new  troops.  The  old  regi¬ 
ments  of  cavalry  throughout  all  their  service,  with  all 
their  losses  put  together,  have  not  lost  so  many  men 
the  2nd  Hussars  of  the  Legion  and  the  11th  Light  Dragoons 
in  a  few  days.  However,  we  must  try  to  make  the  new  as 
good  as  the  old.”  f  This  was  evidently  not  too  easy  to 
accomplish  ;  at  any  rate,  at  the  end  of  the  next  year  it  was 
four  of  the  new  corps  J  which  were  sent  home  as  depleted 
units,  not  any  of  the  seven  old  ones.  All  these,  without 
exception,  endured  to  the  last  campaign  of  1814,  though 
they  nearly  all  §  had  to  be  reduced  from  a  four-squadron 

*  Tomkinson  in  his  diary  observes  (p.  230)  that  the  11th  Light 
Dragoons  was  not  in  such  bad  state  as  the  other  condemned  regi¬ 
ments,  but  that  their  colonel  was  so  senior  that  he  stood  in  the  way 
of  the  promotion  of  several  more  capable  officers  to  command 
brigades — hence  Wellington  resolved  to  get  him  out  of  the  country. 

f  Dispatches,  vii.  p.  58.  To  Lord  Liverpool. 

I  9th  and  11th  Light  Dragoons,  4th  Dragoon  Guards,  2nd 
Hussars,  K.G.L. 

§  Viz.  the  1st  Royals,  13th,  14th,  and  16th  Light  Dragoons,  and 
1st  Hussars,  K.G.L.  See  General  Orders,  October  2,  1811. 

O 


194 


Organization  :  The  Regiments 


to  a  three-squadron  establishment  in  the  autumn  of  1811, 
owing  to  their  shrunken  effective.  But  they  never  fell  so 
low  as  the  four  corps  condemned  to  return  to  England  in 
the  next  year.  No  more  regiments  went  home  after  the 
winter  of  1812-13  ;  the  campaign  of  Vittoria  and  the 
Pyrenees  did  not  bear  heavily  on  the  cavalry,  most  of  whom, 
during  the  mountain  fighting  in  the  autumn,  were  comfort¬ 
ably  cantoned  in  the  Ebro  Valley.  They  only  moved 
forward  again  in  the  spring  of  1814  for  that  invasion  of 
France  which  was  brought  to  such  an  abrupt  end  by  the 
fall  of  Napoleon. 

The  theoretical  establishment  of  the  regiments  of 
cavalry  (putting  aside  the  Household  Cavalry)  was  in  1809 
fixed  at  905  men  in  nearly  every  case.  But  a  large  depot 
was  always  left  behind  in  England,  and  if  a  regiment 
landed  600  sabres  in  Portugal,  in  four  squadrons,  it  was  up 
to  the  average  strength.  At  the  front  it  would  seldom 
show  more  than  450,  as  horses  began  to  die  off  or  go  sick 
the  moment  that  they  felt  the  Peninsular  air  and  diet. 
A  regiment  which  had  been  reduced  from  four  squadrons 
to  three  might  show  only  300  men  on  parade  in  the  middle 
of  a  campaign. 


PI, ATE  VI. 


Officer  of  Light  Dragoons.  Officer  of  Light  Dragoons. 

Uniform  of  1809.  Uniform  of  1813. 


CHAPTER  XI 


INTERNAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REGIMENT  :  THE  OFFICERS 

Hitherto  we  have  been  dealing  with  the  regiment  con¬ 
sidered  as  a  whole,  and  mainly  with  its  place  in  the  brigade 
and  division  to  which  it  had  been  allotted.  We  must  now 
pass  on  to  consider  it  not  as  a  whole,  but  as  an  assemblage 
of  parts — officers,  staff,  sergeants,  rank  and  file,  and 
musicians. 

To  understand  the  mechanism  of  a  regiment  it  is  first 
necessary  to  say  something  about  the  establishment  of 
officers.  Battalions  and  cavalry  regiments  were  normally 
commanded  by  a  lieutenant-colonel :  there  were  very  few 
full  colonels  with  the  army,  and  almost  the  only  ones  who 
commanded  a  unit  were  those  of  the  brigades  of  Guards, 
where  owing  to  the  “  double  rank  ”  which  made  all  lieu¬ 
tenants  “  captains  in  the  army,”  all  captains  lieutenant- 
colonels,  and  all  majors  and  lieutenant-colonels  full  colonels, 
it  resulted  that  the  battalion  commander  always  held  a 
colonelcy. 

When  the  lieutenant-colonel  in  a  battalion  was  dead, 
wounded,  or  sick,  the  unit  was  often  commanded  by  the 
senior  major — there  were  normally  two  of  them — sometimes 
for  many  months  at  a  time,  till  the  absent  officer  returned, 
or  his  place  was  filled  by  promotion.  Cases  were  known 
where,  owing  to  great  mortality  or  invaliding  in  the  senior 
ranks,  a  captain  might  be  found  in  command  of  the  battalion 
for  a  certain  space.  I  note  that  about  the  time  of  Bussaco 
the  “  morning  state  ”  of  the  army  shows  two  units  (both  of 
the  Guards)  commanded  by  colonels,  30  by  lieutenant- 
colonels,  16  by  majors,  one  by  a  captain,  and  this,  I  think, 
was  a  fairly  normal  proportion. 


196  The  Officers  of  the  Regiment 


In  addition  to  the  colonel  and  the  two  majors,  an 
infantry  battalion  at  full  strength  would  possess  ten 
captains  and  twenty  subalterns,  or  a  trifle  more,  giving  the 
allowance  of  three  officers  per  company,  with  a  few  over. 
How  many  of  the  subalterns  would  be  lieutenants  and  how 
many  ensigns  (called  2nd  lieutenants  in  the  rifle  regiments) 
was  a  matter  of  mere  chance,  but  the  lieutenants  were 
nearly  always  in  a  majority.*  A  glance  down  the  morning 
state  of  the  Bussaco  army  of  September,  1811,  shows  that 
one  battalion  (l/45th)  had  no  more  than  one  ensign,  another 
(the  74th)  as  many  as  eleven.  It  was  very  rare  for  a  regi¬ 
ment  to  have  its  full  establishment  of  ten  captains  present ; 
there  were  nearly  always  one  or  two  companies  commanded 
by  their  senior  lieutenants.  In  addition  to  its  company 
officers  every  battalion  had  its  “  staff,”  composed  of  the 
adjutant,  paymaster,  quartermaster,  and  the  surgeon,  with 
his  two  assistant  surgeons.  The  adjutant  was  usually  a 
lieutenant,  but  occasionally  an  ensign  ;  in  the  Guards 
(where  most  ranks  counted  a  step  higher  than  in  the  line), 
he  was  usually  a  “  lieutenant  and  captain.”  In  addition  to 
the  officers  regularly  commissioned,  a  battalion  had  often 
with  it  one  or  two  “  volunteers  ” — young  men  who  were 
practically  probationers  ;  they  were  allowed  to  come  out 
to  an  active-service  battalion  on  the  chance  of  being 
gazetted  to  it  without  purchase,  on  their  own  responsibility. 
They  carried  muskets  and  served  in  the  ranks,  but  were 
allowed  to  wear  uniforms  of  a  better  cloth  than  that  given 
to  the  rank  and  file,  and  messed  with  the  officers. 

The  most  astonishing  case  of  devolution  of  acting  rank 
through  the  death  or  wounding  of  many  seniors  was  at  the 
battle  of  Albuera.  On  the  morning  after  that  action  the 
wrecks  of  the  second  brigade  of  the  2nd  Division,  temporarily 
united  into  one  battalion  because  of  the  dreadful  losses 
which  had  fallen  on  every  one  of  the  three  units  of  which 

*  In  the  Talavera  army,  taking  the  general  totals,  there  were 
536  lieutenants  to  259  ensigns  ;  in  the  Bussaco  army  624  to  237  ; 
in  the  1811  army  (March)  739  to  323 — in  each  case  more  than  two 
to  one. 


Devolution  of  Command 


197 


it  consisted,  were  commanded  by  the  senior  captain  of  the 
l/48th  regiment — and  he  (as  it  chanced)  was  a  French 
emigre,  with  the  somewhat  lugubrious  name  of  Cimitiere. 
The  brigade  had  been  reduced  (it  may  be  remarked)  from  a 
strength  of  1651  to  597  in  the  battle,  no  less  than  1054 
officers  and  men  being  killed,  wounded,  or  missing,  and 
the  brigadier,  with  five  lieutenant-colonels  and  majors 
senior  to  Cimitiere  having  been  killed  or  wounded.*  But 
the  Albuera  losses  were,  of  course,  the  record  in  the  way  of 
heavy  casualties  ;  there  is  nothing  that  can  be  compared 
to  them  in  the  annals  of  Wellington’s  army  for  general 
slaughter  extending  all  through  an  army,  though  certain 
individual  regiments  in  particular  engagements  suffered 
almost  as  heavily — e.g.  in  the  storm  of  Badajoz  and  at 
Waterloo. 

The  chances  of  temporary  command  were  sometimes 
curious.  The  gallant  Colborne,  whom  I  have  already  had 
occasion  to  mention,  though  only  a  lieutenant-colonel,  com¬ 
manded  a  brigade  at  Albuera,  owing  to  the  absence  of  the 
brigadier — he  being  the  senior  of  four  battalion  com¬ 
manders.  He  then  commanded  his  own  regiment  only 
during  1811-13,  but  succeeded  as  senior  lieutenant-colonel 
to  the  charge  of  a  brigade  of  the  Light  Division  for  the  last 
six  months  of  the  war.  Though  he  had  thus  twice  com¬ 
manded  a  brigade  with  distinction  in  the  Peninsula,  we  find 
him  in  the  Waterloo  campaign  once  more  at  the  head  of 
his  own  52nd  Foot,  in  Adam’s  brigade.  It  is  true  that 
with  his  single  battalion  he  there  did  more  than  most  of 
the  generals,  by  giving  the  decisive  stroke  which  wrecked 
the  attack  of  the  French  Guard. 

Not  only  did  lieutenant-colonels  practically  become 
brigadiers,  in  an  interim  fashion,  pretty  frequently,  but 
once  at  least  an  officer  with  no  higher  rank  commanded  a 
whole  division  for  some  months.  This  was  Colonel  Andrew 
Barnard,  who  after  Craufurd  fell  at  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  and 

*  Viz.  killed,  tho  Brigadier-Gen.  Hoghton  and  ono  major, 
wounded  two  lieutenant-colonels  and  two  majors. 


198  The  Officers  of  the  Regiment 

the  only  other  general  with  the  division  (Vandeleur)  was 
wounded,  had  charge  of  the  most  precious  unit  of  Welling¬ 
ton’s  whole  army  for  nearly  five  months,  and  headed  it  at 
the  storm  of  Badajoz.  There  seems  to  have  been  a  simila, 
but  a  shorter  phenomenon  of  this  sort  with  the  3rd  Division, 
after  the  fall  of  Badajoz,  when,  Generals  Picton  and  Kempt 
being  both  disabled,  Colonel  Wallace  of  the  Connaught 
Rangers  commanded  the  division  for  a  week  or  two — till 
Wellington  drafted  in  his  brother-in-law,  General  Paken- 
ham,  to  lead  it,  which  he  did  with  great  distinction  at 
Salamanca.* 

Promotion  in  the  British  Army  at  this  period  was  work¬ 
ing  in  the  most  irregular  and  spasmodic  fashion,  there 
being  two  separate  influences  operating  in  diametrically 
opposite  ways.  The  one  was  the  purchase  system,  the 
other  the  frequent,  but  not  by  any  means  sufficiently 
frequent,  promotion  for  merit  and  good  service  in  the  field. 
The  practice  at  the  Horse  Guards  was  that  casualties  by 
deaths  in  action  were  filled  up  inside  the  regiment,  without 
money  passing,  but  that  for  all  other  vacancies  the  purchase 
system  worked.  When  a  lieutenant-colonelcy,  majority, 
or  captaincy  was  vacant,  the  senior  in  the  next  lower  rank 
had  a  moral  right  to  be  offered  the  vacancy  at  the  regulation 
price.  But  there  were  many  cases  in  which  more  than  the 
regulation  could  be  got.  The  officer  retiring  handed  over  the 
affair  to  a  “  commission  broker,”  and  bidding  was  invited. 
A  poor  officer  at  the  head  of  those  of  his  own  rank  could 
not  afford  to  pay  the  often  very  heavy  price,  and  might  see 
three  or  four  of  his  juniors  buy  their  way  over  his  head, 
while  he  vainly  waited  for  a  vacancy  by  death,  by  which 
he  would  obtain  his  step  without  having  to  pay  cash.  The 
system  of  exchanges,  which  prevailed  on  the  largest  scale, 
also  pressed  very  hardly  on  the  impecunious  ;  officers  from 

*  Picton,  though  wounded  in  the  foot  at  Badajoz,  rode  with  his 
division  for  some  time  after  it  marched  from  Estremadura  for  the 
North,  but  the  wound  getting  inflamed  he  was  compelled  to  go  into 
hospital,  and  Wallace  had  his  place  for  some  weeks  in  June,  Paken- 
ham  appearing  as  divisional  commander  in  July. 


The  Purchase  System 


199 


other  corps,  where  there  was  a  block  in  promotion,  managed 
for  themselves  a  transference  into  battalions  where  there 
seemed  to  be  a  likelihood  of  a  more  rapid  change  of  rank, 
by  paying  large  differences  for  an  exchange  to  those  who 
stood  at  the  head  of  the  list.  But  there  was  also  a  good 
deal  of  exchanging  for  other  reasons — officers  whose  regi¬ 
ments  were  ordered  to  unhealthy  or  unpopular  stations, 
such  as  the  West  Indies  or  New  South  Wales,  offered  con¬ 
siderable  sums  to  others  who  were  ready  to  accept  the 
ineligible  destination  in  return  for  hard  cash.  By  careful 
management  of  this  sort,  a  wealthy  officer  could  procure 
himself  very  rapid  promotion — e.g.  a  lieutenant  might  buy 
a  captaincy  in  a  West  India  regiment  for  a  comparatively 
modest  sum,  and  then,  as  a  captain  in  such  a  corps,  exchange 
on  a  second  payment  with  a  broken  or  needy  captain  in 
some  other  regiment  on  a  European  station,  to  whom 
money  was  all-important,  and  so  get  well  established  in  his 
new  rank,  without  ever  really  having  quitted  home,  or 
served  in  the  corps  into  and  out  of  which  he  had  rapidly 
come  and  gone — on  paper  only.  It  is  said  that  one  young 
officer,  who  had  the  advantages  of  being  wealthy,  a  peer, 
and  possessed  of  great  family  influence  in  Parliament,  was 
worked  up  from  a  lieutenancy  to  a  lieutenant-colonelcy  in 
a  single  year.  This,  of  course,  was  a  very  exceptional  case, 
and  happened  long  ere  the  Peninsular  War  began  ;  but  it 
may  be  remembered  that  Wellington  himself,  was,  through 
similar  advantages  on  a  smaller  scale,  enabled  to  move  up 
from  ensign  on  March  7,  1787,  to  lieutenant-colonel  in 
September,  1793 — five  steps  in  seven  years,  during  which  he 
had  been  moved  through  as  many  regiments — two  of  horse 
and  five  of  foot.  He  was  only  nineteen  months  a  captain 
and  six  months  a  major,  and  he  had  seen  no  war  service 
whatever  when  he  sailed  for  Flanders  in  command  of  the 
33rd  at  the  age  of  twenty-three  !  The  Duke  of  York  later 
insisted  on  a  certain  minimum  service  in  each  rank  before 
promotion  could  be  obtained. 

Contrast  with  such  promotion  that  of  the  poor  and 


200  The  Officers  of  the  Regiment 


friendless  officer  who,  after  twenty-five  years  of  service, 
six  Peninsular  campaigns,  and  two  wounds,  found  himself 
still  a  captain  at  the  age  of  43  !  *  But  there  were  plenty  of 
unlucky  men  who  at  the  end  of  the  war  were  still  only 
lieutenants  after  six  campaigns,  and  were  placed  on  half -pay 
as  such,  at  the  great  disbandment  of  the  second  battalions 
which  took  place  in  1816-17.  The  juxtaposition  of  rapid 
promotion  obtainable  by  influence  and  the  purchase  of 
1  steps,  with  absolute  stagnation  in  a  low  rank,  which  often 
fell  on  the  impecunious  officer,  whose  regiment  did  not 
chance  to  have  many  casualties  in  action,  was  appalling  and 
monstrous. 

I  take  it  that  the  most  pernicious  of  all  the  disturbing 
causes  which  told  against  the  right  distribution  of  pro¬ 
motion  was  political  influence.  As  a  contemporary  pamphle¬ 
teer  wrote  :  “  Instances  are  very  few  indeed  of  preferment 
being  obtained  by  other  corrupt  means  f  compared  to  the 
omnipotence  of  Parliamentary  interest.  Thence  originates 
the  shameful  practice  of  thrusting  boys  into  a  company 
over  the  heads  of  all  the  lieutenants  and  ensigns  of  the 
regiment.  The  Duke  of  York  has  done  something  to  check 
it,  but  he  can  never  remove  the  Colossus  of  Parliamentary 
interest,  an  interest  that  disdains  solicitation,  and  imperi¬ 
ously  demands  from  the  minister  of  the  day  that  which  no 
minister  ever  found  it  convenient  to  deny.  To  this  species 
of  influence  the  commander-in-chief  must  give  way — for 
it  is  capable,  when  slighted,  of  removing  both  commander- 
in-chief  and  minister.”  $ 

It  was  to  the  unscrupulous  use  by  great  men  of  their 
parliamentary  influence  upon  the  ministry  of  the  day  that  the 

*  See  the  bitter  remarks  on  pp.  367-369  on  Blakeney’s  Auto¬ 
biography.  For  a  number  of  illustrative  anecdotes  see  Leach’s  curious 
little  book,  Rambles  on  the  Banks  of  Styx,  which  is  full  of  Peninsular 
grievances. 

f  The  allusion  is  to  the  obscure  business  of  influence  in  dis¬ 
tributing  commissions  said  to  have  been  used  by  the  Duke  of 
York’s  mistress,  Mrs.  Mary  Ann  Clarke. 

X  For  more  of  this  pamphlet,  see  Stocqueler’s  Personal  History 
of  the  Horse  Guards,  pp.  60-67. 


The  King’s  Hard  Bargains 


201 

army  owed  a  great  proportion  of  its  “  King’s  liard  bargains  ” 
in  the  commissioned  ranks.  The  obscure  but  necessary 
instruments  of  one  of  the  great  borough-mongers — Whig  no 
less  than  Tory — were  often  paid  by  the  nomination  of  their 
sons  or  other  young  relatives  to  a  commission,  by  the  influence 
of  their  patron :  and  the  families  that  did  the  dirty  work  of 
a  great  politician  were  not  likely  to  be  distinguished  for 
high  morals  or  uprightness.  Sometimes  the  nominations 
were  absolutely  shameful — it  is  said  that  the  son  of  the 
keeper  of  a  fashionable  gaming-house  in  St.  James’  was 
slid  into  the  list  of  ensigns  on  one  occasion,  by  a  politician 
whom  his  father  had  obliged.  Whether  this  be  true  or  not, 
it  is  certain  that  there  was  a  sprinkling  of  officers  who  were 
not  gentlemen  in  any  sense  of  the  term  serving  throughout 
the  war.*  Others  about  whose  gentle  blood  there  was  no 
doubt,  were  undesirable  in  other  ways — prominent  among 
them  a  section  of  young  Irish  squireens  with  the  bullying 
and  duelling  habits,  as  well  as  the  hard-drinking,  which 
were  notoriously  prevalent  among  the  less  civilized  strata  of 
society  beyond  St.  George’s  Channel.  I  find  in  one  memoir 
a  note  of  a  newly- joined  ensign  after  mess  addressing  the 
assembled  officers  as  follows  :  “  By  Jasus,  gentlemen,  I 
am  conscious  you  must  have  the  meanest  opinion  of  my 
courage.  Here  have  I  been  no  less  than  six  weeks  with 
the  regiment,  and  the  divil  of  a  duel  have  I  fought  yet. 
Now,  Captain  C.,  you  are  the  senior  captain,  and  if  you 
please  I  will  begin  with  you  first  :  so  name  your  time  and 
place.”  As  the  diarist  very  wisely  writes,  “  one  could  not 
be  too  guarded  in  one’s  conduct  with  such  heroes.”  f 

Duels,  I  may  remark  in  passing,  wrere  much  less  frequent 
in  the  Peninsular  Army  than  might  have  been  expected. 
Wellington  (though  long  after  he  most  foolishly  “  went 
out  ”  with  Lord  Winchelsea  in  1829)  set  his  face  against 
them  on  active  service,  because  he  could  not  afford  to  lose 

*  For  an  astounding  story  of  an  ensign  who  had  been  a  billiard- 
marker  in  Dublin,  and  who  was  ultimately  cashiered  for  theft,  soo 
Col.  Bunbury’s  Reminiscences,  vol.  i.  pp.  26-28. 

t  Memoirs  of  Captain  George  Ellers,  1 2th  Foot,  p.  43. 


202  The  Officers  of  the  Regiment 


good  officers  on  account  of  personal  quarrels.  There 
certainly  were  much  fewer  duels  proportionately  in  the 
Peninsula  than  in  England  at  the  time — not  to  speak  of 
Ireland  and  India,  where  they  were  beyond  all  reason 
common.  I  have  only  found  records  of  four  fatal  duels  in 
the  records  of  court-martials,  and  though  non-fatal  ones 
could  have  been  (and  were)  hushed  up,  they  cannot  have 
been  very  numerous,  for  one  may  read  through  scores  of 
memoirs  and  diaries  without  running  upon  the  mention  of 
one.  It  is  curious  to  note  that  when  they  did  occur,  and  a 
court-martial  followed,  that  body  invariably  found  that 
though  there  was  no  doubt  that  Captain  A.  or  Lieutenant 
B.  was  dead,  yet  there  was  no  conclusive  proof  that  he  had 
been  killed  by  C.  or  D.—the  mouths  of  the  seconds  being 
sealed  by  the  fact  that  they  were  also  on  their  trial  for 
having  acted  in  such  a  capacity.*  The  whole  matter  was 
clearly  a  solemn  farce.  But  the  fact  remains  that  duels 
were  not  frequent,  and  that  duellists  had  a  bad  mark 
against  them.  Good  commanding  officers  took  immense 
trouble  to  prevent  a  duel  from  arising  over  silly  mess-table 
quarrels,  exerting  every  influence  to  make  one  party,  or 
both,  apologize  for  words  spoken  in  anger,  or  in  liquor. | 

The  body  of  officers  of  a  Peninsular  regiment  was  often 
a  very  odd  party — there  might  be  a  lieutenant-colonel  of 
twenty-six,  who  had  risen  rapidly  by  purchase  or  interest, 
and  captains  of  fifty  or  even  sixty  ;  I  found  a  note  of  one 
who  had  attained  that  age  in  the  73rd.  At  the  head  of 
each  rank  there  might  be  several  impecunious  and  disap¬ 
pointed  men,  waiting  for  the  promotion  that  could  only 
come  by  casualties  in  action,  since  they  could  never  hope  to 
i  purchase  their  step.  Nevertheless,  the  feuds  that  might 

*  See  the  instances  in  General  Orders  for  April  23,  1910,  and 
July  16,  1812. 

t  For  a  good  example,  see  Dickson  Papers,  pp.  622,  623,  where 
the  good  Dickson  gets  one  officer  to  own  that  he  was  “  betrayed  in 
a  moment  of  intoxication  ”  into  insulting  words,  and  the  other  to 
say  that  the  counter-charge  with  which  he  replied  was  made  “in  a 
moment  of  great  irritation  and  passion.”  The  apologies  were  both 
passed  as  satisfactory. 


Professional  Training 


203 


have  been  expected  to  follow  such  a  situation  do  not  seem 
to  have  been  so  many,  or  so  bitter,  as  might  have  been 
expected.  The  grudge  was  set  against  the  system  rather 
than  the  individual,  in  most  cases,  and  the  sight  of  a  mess 
cut  up  into  cliques  and  coteries  of  enemies,  though  it  can 
be  found  recorded  occasionally,  was  quite  exceptional.* 
The  saving  fact  was  that  there  was  always  the  chance  of 
promotion  for  merit,  in  reward  of  some  specially  gallant  deed, 
and  it  often  came — though  the  Duke  was  occasionally 
incomprehensible  in  the  way  in  which  he  mentioned  or  did 
not  mention  officers  in  dispatches.  The  lieutenant  who 
brought  down  the  French  flag  from  the  castle  of  Badajoz, 
and  who  was  sent  with  it  by  Picton  to  the  commander-in- 
chief,  was  thanked  and  asked  to  dinner,  but  was  still  a 
lieutenant  years  after,  in  spite  of  his  general’s  vehement 
remonstrances. t  Dozens  of  such  instances  could  be 
quoted. 

Professional  training  for  officers  had  perforce  been  non¬ 
existent  in  the  early  years  of  the  French  war.  There  was  no 
institution  which  supplied  it,  and  all  military  knowledge 
had  to  be  acquired  by  rule  of  thumb  at  regimental  head¬ 
quarters.  An  improvement  of  the  greatest  importance  was 
made  by  the  establishment  in  December,  1801,  of  the 
“  Royal  Military  College  ”  at  High  Wycombe  for  the  use  of 
young  officers,  followed  by  the  creation  of  its  “Junior 
Department”  in  May,  1802,  “for  the  instruction  of  those 
who  from  early  life  are  intended  for  the  military  pro¬ 
fession.”  The  latter,  the  origin  of  the  college  at  Sandhurst, 
to  which  the  department  was  removed  in  1811,  accepted 
boys  as  early  as  thirteen.  Its  first  inspector-general  was  the 
French  emigre  Jarry,  to  whom  we  owe  the  “  Instructions 

*  A  series  of  court-martials  in  one  Peninsular  battalion  shows  us 
such  a  picture,  with  the  colonel  on  one  side  and  the  two  majors  on 
the  other.  The  former  prosecuted  the  senior  major  for  embezzle¬ 
ment,  while  at  the  same  moment  a  subaltern  was  “  broke  ”  for 
alloging  that  the  junior  major  had  shown  cowardice  in  the  field. 
The  Horse-Guards  finally  dispersed  all  the  officers  into  different 
corps,  as  the  only  way  of  ending  the  feud. 

f  See  pp.  121-2  of  vol.  ii.  of  Robinson’s  Life  of  Picton. 


204  The  Officers  of  the  Regiment 

for  Light  Infantry  in  the  Field  ”  of  1804,  while  Colonel 
John  Gaspai’d  Le  Marchant  was  “  Lieutenant-governor  and 
Superintendant  General.”  This  was  the  accomplished 
cavalry  officer  who  fell  in  1812,  at  the  head  of  his 
brigade,  in  the  crisis  of  the  battle  of  Salamanca,  when 
he  had  just  delivered  a  decisive  charge.  The  military 
college  men  were  already  numerous  when  the  Peninsular 
War  began. 

The  French  General,  Foy,  a  witness  whose  authority 
can  hardly  be  called  in  question,  for  he  is  making  grudging 
admissions,  says  that  he  considered  the  general  mass  of 
the  British  officers  excellent.*  The  more  we  study  detailed 
records,  the  more  willingly  do  we  acknowledge  that  his 
praise  is  well  deserved.  The  weaker  brethren  were  very 
few — so  few  that  an  enemy  did  not  even  notice  them. 
Misconduct  on  the  field  was  the  rarest  of  offences  ;  there 
are  hardly  half  a  dozen  court-martials  for  suspected  slack¬ 
ness,  among  the  hundreds  that  were  held  for  other  offences. 
There  were  an  appreciable  number  of  officers  “  broke  ” 
for  faults  that  came  from  hard  drinking,  “  incapable  when  on 
duty,”  and  so  forth,  or  brawling,  and  a  very  few  for  financial 
irregularities  ;  but  considering  the  unpromising  material 
that  was  sometimes  pitchforked  into  a  regiment  by  the 
unscrupulous  exercise  of  patronage  at  home,  they  were 
exceedingly  few.  The  only  class  of  failures  who  had  any 
appreciable  numbers,  and  earned  a  special  name,  were 
the  “  Belemites,”  so  called  from  the  general  depot  at  the 
convent  of  Belem  in  the  suburbs  of  Lisbon.  This  was  the 
headquarters  of  all  officers  absent  from  the  front  as  con¬ 
valescents  or  on  leave,  and  the  limited  proportion  who 
stayed  there  over-long,  and  showed  an  insufficient  eagerness 
to  return  to  their  regiments,  were  nicknamed  from  the  spot 
where  they  lingered  beyond  the  bounds  of  discretion.  Well¬ 
ington  occasionally  gave  an  order  to  Colonel  Peacocke,  the 
military  governor  of  Lisbon,  to  rout  up  this  coterie — there 
were  always  a  sprinkling  there  who  were  not  over-anxious 

*  Letter  printed  in  Vie  Militaire,  cd.  Girod  de  l’Ain,  p.  98. 


The  “  Belemites  ” 


205 


to  resume  the  hard  life  of  campaigning,  and  loved  too  much 
the  gambling-hells  and  other  sordid  delights  of  Lisbon.* 
Occasionally  the  notices  which  appear  in  General  Orders 
about  these  gentry  are  rather  surprising — one  would  not 
have  thought  that  such  men  could  even  have  obtained  a 
commission.  Take,  for  example,  “  The  commanding  officer 
at  Lisbon  (or  the  commanding  officer  of  any  station  at 

which  Captain - of  the  88th  may  happen  to  be  found), 

will  be  pleased  to  place  that  officer  under  arrest,  and  send 
him  to  join  his  regiment,  he  having  been  absent  for  several 
months  without  leave,  and  having  been  in  Portugal  since 
October  20th  last,  without  reporting  himself  to  or  com¬ 
municating  with  his  commanding  officer.”  f 

Wellington  in  his  moments  of  irritation  sometimes 
wrote  as  if  the  majority  of  his  officers  were  slack  and  dis¬ 
obedient.  Such  men  existed ;  but,  as  one  who  knew  the 
Duke  well  observed,  “  by  long  exercise  of  absolute  power 
he  had  become  intolerant  of  the  slightest  provocation,  and 
every  breach  of  discipline,  no  matter  how  limited  its  range, 
made  him  furious  with  the  whole  army.  Hence  frequent 
General  Orders,  as  violent  as  they  were  essentially  unjust, 
wherein,  because  of  the  misdeeds  of  a  few,  all  who  served 
under  him  were  denounced — the  officers  as  ignorant  of  their 
duty,  the  rank  and  file  as  little  better  than  a  rabble.”  J.' 

But  the  duty-shirking  officer,  and  still  more  the  dis¬ 
reputable  officer  was,  after  all,  a  very  rare  exception.  The 
atmosphere  of  contempt  which  surrounded  him  in  his 
regiment  as  a  rule  sufficed  to  make  him  send  in  his  papers, 
after  a  longer  or  a  shorter  period  of  endurance,  in  pro¬ 
portion  as  his  skin  was  tough  or  thin.  Opinion  was  not 
so  hard  upon  the  man  who  was  merely  quarrelsome  and 

*  See  the  heading  “  Lisbon  ”  in  the  collected  volume  of  General 
Orders,  pp.  206,  207. 

|  General  Orders,  Freneda,  December  4,  1811.  For  anecdotes 
about  this  officer’s  shirking  propensities,  see  pp.  27-36  of  the  second 
series  of  Grattan’s  Adventures  with  the  Connaught  Rangers.  He  was 
ultimately  cashiered. 

J  Gleig’s  Reminiscences  of  Wellington,  p.  303. 


206  The  Officers  of  the  Regiment 


ungentlemanly  in  his  cups.  But  there  were  limits  even 
to  the  boisterousness  permitted  to  the  tippler,  and  drunken¬ 
ness  when  in  face  of  the  enemy,  or  in  a  position  of 
military  responsibility,  was  always  fatal. 

There  was,  throughout  the  war,  a  perceptible  proportion 
of  officers  who  had  risen  from  the  ranks.  Meritorious 
service,  showing  good  capacity  as  well  as  courage,  not 
unfrequently  led  to  the  promotion  of  a  sergeant  to  an 
ensigncy.  A  well-remembered  case  is  that  of  the  Sergeant 
Newman  of  the  43rd  who  rallied  the  stragglers  during  the 
march  from  Lugo  to  Betanzos,  in  the  Corunna  retreat,  and 
beat  off  the  pursuing  French  dragoons.  Another  is  that  of 
Sergeant  Masterson  of  the  2/87th,  who  captured  the  eagle 
of  the  8 th  Ligne  at  Barrosa.  Many  more  might  be  quoted, 
though  none  of  them  is  so  striking  as  that  of  a  man  who 
did  not  serve  in  the  Peninsula,  but  in  contemporary  cam¬ 
paigns  in  India,  the  celebrated  John  Shipp.  He  was  twice 
given  a  commission  for  deeds  of  exceptional  daring.  After 
winning  his  first  ensigncy  in  the  storming  party  at  the 
Siege  of  Bhurtpoor  in  1805,  he  was  forced  to  “  sell  out  ” 
a  little  later  by  improvident  living.  He  enlisted  as  a  private 
in  another  regiment,  and  was  again  promoted  from  the 
ranks  for  a  single  combat  with  a  Nepaulese  chief  during 
the  first  Goorkha  War  of  1815.  Conducting  himself  with 
more  wisdom  on  his  second  chance,  he  served  long  as  an 
officer,  and  when  he  went  on  half-pay  became  chief-con¬ 
stable  of  Liverpool.  His  autobiography  is  an  artless  and 
interesting  piece  of  work  well  worth  perusal. 

When  a  regiment  had  greatly  distinguished  itself  in 
the  field,  Wellington  not  unfrequently  directed  its  colonel 
to  recommend  a  sergeant  for  a  commission.  This,  for 
example,  was  done  for  all  three  battalions  of  the  Light 
Division  after  their  splendid  exploit  at  Bussaco.  Yet  he 
did  not  approve  of  this  system  of  promotion  as  anything 
but  a  very  exceptional  measure,  and  in  his  table-talk  with 
Lord  Stanhope  we  find  some  very  harshly  worded  verdicts 
on  old  rankers,  “  their  origin  would  come  out,  and  you 


Officers  from  the  Ranks 


207 


could  never  perfectly  trust  them,”  *  especially  in  the 
matter  of  drink.  This  seems  to  be  a  typical  instance  of 
the  Duke’s  aristocratic  prejudices — but  there  was  some¬ 
thing  in  what  he  said.  The  position  of  the  promoted 
sergeants  was  certainly  difficult,  and  it  required  a  man  of 
exceptional  character  to  make  it  good.  As  a  rule,  they 
drifted  into  the  position  of  paymasters,  recruiting  officers, 
barrack  masters,  and  such-like  posts.  But  many  of  them 
made  useful  and  efficient  adjutants.  In  command  they 
were  not  as  a  rule  successful, f  and  I  have  only  come  on  a 
single  case  of  one  who  reached  the  rank  of  full  colonel,  and 
of  two  who  were  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  a  majority. 
It  is  clear  that  the  purchase  system  pressed  very  hardly 
upon  them  :  with  no  private  resources  it  was  impossible 
for  them  ever  to  buy  a  step,  and,  after  reaching  the  rank 
of  captain,  they  almost  invariably  went  upon  half-pay  or 
looked  for  employment  in  some  civil  or  semi-civil  capacity. 

Concerning  the  equipment  of  the  officer,  his  baggage, 
his  horses  and  mules,  and  his  servants,  information  will 
be  found  in  another  chapter.  Here  we  are  dealing  with 
him  as  an  item  in  the  machinery  of  the  regiment. 

*  Conversations  with  Duke  of  Wellington,  pp.  13  and  18. 

t  See,  for  an  instance,  pp.  249-50. 


CHAPTER  XII 


INTERNAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  REGIMENT  :  THE  RANK 

AND  FILE 

He  who  would  make  himself  acquainted  in  detail  with  the 
many  experiments  by  which  British  Governments,  from  the 
rupture  of  the  Peace  of  Amiens  onward,  strove  to  keep  on 
foot  in  full  numbers  the  very  large  army  that  it  had  raised, 
must  satisfy  his  curiosity  by  studying  the  admirable  volumes 
of  Mr.  Fortescue.  Here  we  are  concerned  only  with  the 
methods  which  prevailed  from  1809  till  1814,  and  gave 
Wellington  the  invincible,  though  often  attenuated,  bat¬ 
talions  which  conquered  at  Talavera  and  Bussaco,  at 
Salamanca  and  Toulouse. 

In  the  Peninsular  Army  the  system  of  territorial  names 
prevailed  for  nearly  all  the  regiments  of  the  line,  but  in 
most  cases  the  local  designation  had  no  very  close  relation 
with  the  actual  provenance  of  the  men.  There  were  a 
certain  number  of  regiments  that  were  practically  national, 
e.g.  most  of  the  Highland  battalions,  and  nearly  all  of  the 
Irish  ones,  were  very  predominantly  Highland  and  Irish 
as  to  their  rank  and  file  :  but  even  in  the  79th  or  the  88th 
there  was  a  certain  sprinkling  of  English  recruits.  And 
in  some  nominally  Scottish  regiments  like  the  71st  Highland 
Light  Infantry,  or  the  90th  Perthshire  Volunteers,*  the 
proportion  of  English  and  Irish  was  very  large.  Similarly 
in  almost  all  the  nominally  English  regiments  there  was  a 

*  When  the  90th  was  raised  in  1794,  out  of  the  746  men  165 
were  English  and  56  Irish — not  much  less  than  a  third  of  the  whole. 
Cf.  Delavoye’s  History  of  the  90 th,  p.  3.  In  the  Waterloo  campaign 
the  71st  had  83  English  and  56  Irish  in  its  ranks. 


Volunteers  from  the  Mtlitia  209 

large  sprinkling  of  Irish,  and  a  few  Scots.  This  came  partly 
from  the  fact  that,  though  the  corps  recruited  in  their  own 
districts,  yet  they  were  often  allowed  to  send  recruiting 
parties  to  great  centres  like  London,  Bristol,  Liverpool, 
Glasgow,  or  Dublin.  But  still  more  was  it  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  larger  half  of  the  recruits  were  raised  not  in  the 
old  normal  fashion,  but  by  volunteering  from  the  embodied 
militia,  and  that  in  this  system  practically  no  attempt  was 
made  to  confine  the  choice  of  militiamen  wishing  to  join 
the  regular  army  to  their  territorial  regiment.  Nothing, 
for  example,  was  more  usual  than  to  find  such  things  as 
100  of  the  King’s  County  Militia  joining  the  31st  or  Hunt¬ 
ingdonshire  Regiment.  When  the  77th  or  East  Middlesex 
Regiment  returned  from  India  in  1808,  it  was  completed, 
before  going  out  to  the  Peninsula,  from  the  1st  West  York, 
North  and  South  Mayo,  Northampton,  and  South  Lincoln 
Militia,  but  did  not  get  a  single  man  from  the  Middlesex 
Militia.*  The  Shropshire  Regiment  (53rd)  when  allowed 
in  a  similar  case  to  call  for  volunteers,  did  get  99  from 
its  own  county  militia,  but  144  more  from  the  Dorset, 
East  York,  and  Montgomery  local  corps.  |  The  81st  or 
Loyal  Lincoln  was  filled  up  in  1808,  before  sailing  for 
Portugal,  from  the  Dublin,  King’s  County,  South  Devon, 
and  Montgomery  Militia.  Instances  might  be  multiplied 
ad  nauseam.  It  was  quite  exceptional  for  any  English 
corps  to  contain  a  preponderance  of  men  from  its  own 
nominal  district,  and  nearly  all  of  them  had  from  a  fifth 
to  a  fourth  of  Irish. 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  advantage  to  the 
Peninsular  Army  of  the  system,  the  invention  of  Castlereagh 
when  War  Minister,  which  enabled  it  to  draw  in  such  a 
heavy  proportion  on  the  militia  for  recruits.  {  The  men 
thus  obtained  had  all  had  at  least  twelve  months’  drill  and 
discipline,  in  a  corps  which  had  been  under  arms  for  many 

*  YVoolwright’s  History  of  the  nth,  p.  29. 

•j'  Iiogerson’s  History  of  the  53rd,  p.  35. 

j  See  Fortescue’s  History  of  the  British  Army,  vi.  pp.  180-183. 

P 


210 


The  Men  op  the  Regiment 


years  :  they  were  trained  soldiers  of  some  little  experience, 
much  superior  in  fact  to  the  recruits  who  had  been  pro¬ 
cured  in  other  ways.  The  permanent  militia  represented 
the  force  raised  by  the  counties  by  ballot,  though  substi¬ 
tutes  rather  than  principals  were  procured  by  that  device. 
Being  forced  to  serve  at  home  for  a  period  of  years,  the 
militiamen  freely  volunteered  into  the  line,  from  love  of 
adventure,  dislike  of  dull  country  quarters  in  England  or 
Ireland,*  and,  it  must  be  added,  the  temptation  of  the 
enormous  bounty,  running  at  various  times  from  £16  up 
to  £40,  which  was  given  to  those  changing  their  service. f 
It  is  a  mistake  to  make  a  point,  as  some  writers  have 
done,  of  the  fact  that  many  regiments  appeared  in  Spain 
with  their  ranks  “  full  of  raw  militiamen,  who  sometimes 
still  bore  their  old  militia  badges  on  their  knapsacks.”  So 
far  from  their  being  ineligible  recruits,  they  were  the  very 
best,  for  the  militia  of  1808-14  was  not  a  body  called  out 
for  short  service  during  one  month  of  the  year,  but  a  per¬ 
manent  institution  which  practically  formed  a  second  line 
to  the  field  army.  And  no  man  was  allowed  to  volunteer 
into  the  regulars  till  he  had  served  a  full  year  in  the  local 
corps  in  which  he  had  enlisted.  A  regiment  must  get  drafts 
on  active  service,  and  these  were  the  very  best  sort  that 
could  be  obtained.  Of  course  a  corps  filled  up  hastily 


*  To  quote  an  interesting  explanatory  note  from  the  autobio¬ 
graphy  of  Morris  of  the  73rd.  “  The  militia  would  be  drawn  up  in 
line,  and  the  officers  for  the  regiments  requiring  volunteers  would 
give  a  glowing  description  of  their  several  corps,  describing  the 
victories  they  had  gained,  and  the  honours  they  had  acquired,  and 
conclude  by  offering  the  bounty.  If  these  inducements  were  not 
effectual  in  getting  men,  coercive  measures  were  adopted  :  the 
militia  colonel  would  put  on  heavy  and  long  drills  and  field  exercises, 
which  were  so  tedious  and  oppressive  that  many  men  would  embrace 
the  alternative,  and  volunteer  for  the  regulars”  (p.  13). 

j-  A  canny  Scot  makes  his  explanation  for  volunteering  in  a 
fashion  which  combines  patriotism,  love  of  adventure,  and  calculation. 
“  In  the  militia  I  serve  secure  of  life  and  limb,  but  with  no  prospect 
of  future  benefit  for  old  age  (pension)  to  which  I  may  attain.  It  is 
better  to  hazard  both  abroad  in  the  regular  service,  than  to  have 
poverty  and  hard-labour  accompanying  me  to  a  peaceful  grave  at 
nome.”  Anton’s  Retrospect  of  a  Military  Life,  p.  39. 


The  Normal  Recruit 


211 


with  a  great  number  of  them,  would  want  a  little  time  to 
shake  down,  but  it  would  take  far  longer  to  assimilate  a 
corresponding  number  of  ordinary  recruits,  hurried  out 
from  its  regimental  depot — for  these  men  would  neither 
have  had  a  whole  year’s  drill,  nor  would  they  have  been 
accustomed  to  the  daily  economy  of  a  full  regiment — depots 
seem  to  have  been  slackly  administered,  in  many  cases  by 
officers  and  sergeants  invalided  and  past  service,  or  who 
had  of  their  own  desire  shirked  the  service  at  the  front. 

The  other  moiety  of  the  recruits  who  came  out  to  the 
Peninsula,  to  fill  up  the  never-ending  gaps  in  the  ranks  of 
a  battalion  at  the  front,  were  on  the  whole  worse  material 
than  the  militiamen.  They  were  the  usual  raw  stuff  swept 
in  by  the  recruiting  sergeant — all  those  restless  spirits 
who  were  caught  by  the  attraction  of  the  red  coat,  country 
lads  tired  of  the  plough,  or  town  lads  who  lived  on  the  edge 
of  unemployment,  and  to  whom  a  full  stomach  had  been 
for  some  time  a  rarity.  We  have  autobiographies  of 
runaway  apprentices  who  had  bolted  from  a  hard  master,* 
and  of  village  Lotharios  who  had  evaded  an  entanglement 
by  a  timely  evasion. |  Sons  of  hard  fathers,  and  stepsons 
of  intolerable  stepmothers  drifted  in,  and  still  more  fre¬ 
quently  the  rowdy  spirits  who  were  “  wanted  ”  by  the 
constable  for  assault  and  battery,  or  for  some  rural  practical 
joke  which  had  set  the  parish  in  an  uproar.  The  oddest 
cause  of  enlisting  that  I  have  come  upon  is  that  of  a  son 
of  a  respectable  Edinburgh  tradesman’s  family,  whose 
account  of  the  fortunes  of  the  71st  in  1808-15  is  one  of  the 
best  written  of  all  the  soldier-biographies.  A  stage-struck 
youth  with  a  little  money  in  his  pocket,  he  had  often  gone 
on  (no  doubt  as  a  super)  at  the  Theatre  Royal,  carrying  a 
banner  or  a  five-word  message.  At  last  the  summit  of  his 
ambition  came — a  friendly  manager  gave  him  a  short 
part,  where  he  had  actually  some  share  in  the  action.  He 

*  See  the  amusing  narrative  of  Lawrence  of  the  20th  and  his 
two  evasions  from  his  stone-mason  employer. 

t  See  Stanhope’s  Conversations  with  Wellington,  p.  13. 


212 


The  Men  of  the  Regiment 


invited  all  his  friends  to  the  performance  to  see  his  glory, 
came  on  the  boards,  and  was  suddenly  struck  with  stage 
fright,  so  that  he  stood  gaping  and  silent  before  the  audience, 
and  heard  the  laughter  and  hooting  begin.  The  poor 
wretch  bolted  straight  away  from  the  stage  in  his  costume 
and  paint,  ran  down  to  Leith,  and  enlisted  with  a  sergeant 
of  the  71st,  whose  party  was  sailing  that  night  for  the 
South.  Anything  was  preferable  to  him  rather  than  to 
face  next  morning  the  jeers  of  the  friends  to  whom  he 
had  boasted  of  his  histrionic  powers,  and  who  had  come 
to  see  his  debut.* 

But  these  were  the  better  spirits.  There  was  a  much 
lower  stratum  among  the  recruits,  drawn  from  the  criminal 
or  semi-criminal  classes,  whom  the  enormous  bounty  offered 
for  volunteers  had  tempted  into  the  service — generally  with 
the  purpose  of  getting  out  of  it  again  as  soon  as  possible. 
Not  only  were  there  poachers,  smugglers,  and  street-corner 
roughs,  who  had  been  offered  by  the  local  authorities  the 
choice  between  enlistment  and  the  jail,  but  pickpockets, 
coiners,  and  footpads,  who  had  made  London  or  some 
other  great  town  too  hot  for  them,  often  enlisted  as  a  pis 
oiler,  intending  to  desert  and  “  jump  another  bounty  ” 
when  they  could.  But  sergeants  were  lynx-eyed  when 
they  found  that  they  had  enlisted  a  slippery  customer,  and 
the  evasive  recruit  often  found  himself  kept  under  lock 
and  key  in  a  fort,  and  shipped  off  to  Spain  before  he  got 
his  opportunity  to  abscond.  The  number  of  these  “  King’s 
hard  bargains  ”  varied  much  between  different  regiments, 
but  Colborne,  a  good  authority,  says  that  the  battalion 
was  lucky  which  had  not  its  fifty  irreclaimable  bad  cha¬ 
racters,  drunkards,  plunderers,  stragglers,  would-be  deserters, 
actual  criminals  “  whom  neither  punishment  nor  any 
kind  of  discipline  could  restrain ;  for  the  system  of  recruit¬ 
ing  was  defective  and  radically  bad.”  f  It  was  this  scum, 

*  Journal  of  T.  S.  of  the  71st  in  Constable’s  Memorials  of  tli& 
Late  War,  i.  p.  25. 

-f  Note  by  Colborne  on  p.  396  of  his  Life  by  Mo  ere -Smith. 


Undesirable  Recruits 


213 


a  small  proportion  of  the  whole,  but  always  swimming  to 
the  top  when  there  was  mischief  to  be  done — peasants  to 
be  plundered  or  churches  to  be  pillaged — that  provided  the  j 
subject-matter  for  court-martials,  and  engrossed  the  majority 
of  the  attention  of  the  Provost  Marshal.  Officers  of  un¬ 
doubted  humanity,  and  men  in  the  ranks  who  knew  what 
they  were  talking  about,  unite  in  stating  that  there  was  a 
residuum  in  the  Peninsular  Army  which  could  only  be 
governed  by  the  lash. 

This  small  percentage  of  irreclaimables  provided  the 
nucleus  around  which  misconduct  sometimes  grew  to  a 
great  scale,  in  moments  of  special  privation  or  temptation. 
In  abominable  orgies  like  the  sack  of  Badajoz,  or  the  lesser 
but  still  disgraceful  riots  at  Ciudad  Rodrigo  and  San 
Sebastian,  it  was  the  criminals  who  started  the  game,  but 
the  drunkards — a  far  more  numerous  class — who  took  it 
up.  When  the  drink  was  in  them,  the  mob  was  capable  of 
any  freak  of  wanton  mischief  or  cruelty.  Wellington  more 
than  once  complained  that  the  most  reckless  and  ungovern¬ 
able  of  his  rowdies  were  the  newly -joined  Irish  recruits.  It 
seems  that  when  in  liquor  they  became  irresponsible  madmen, 
and  had  not  undergone  enough  of  discipline  to  get  them 
into  a  habit  of  obedience,  which  might  serve  as  a  substitute 
for  moral  sense.  And  I  can  well  believe  this  from  casual 
evidence  picked  up  in  the  diaries  of  his  obscure  subordinates. 
The  account  of  the  difficulties  of  officers  and  sergeants  in 
getting  a  large  draft  of  Irish  recruits  from  Cashel  to  Deal, 
which  I  met  in  one  soldier-diary  reads  like  a  nightmare  * — 
or  a  glimpse  of  some  primitive  pagan  heaven,  in  which  all 
was  objectless  fighting  in  the  intervals  between  frequent 
and  limitless  potations.  As  a  side-light  on  the  national 
failing,  I  may  quote  the  fact  that  going  through  the  complete 
record  of  general  court-martials  for  the  whole  period  1809-14, 

I  found  that  after  putting  aside  all  trials  of  officers,  non- 
combatants,  and  foreign  auxiliaries  (the  last  almost  always 
for  desertion)  there  was  an  unmistakable  over-percentage 
*  Rifleman  Harris,  pp.  10-16. 


214 


The  Men  of  the  Regiment 


of  men  with  Irish  names,  just  as  there  was  an  under- 
percentage  of  Scots.  The  offences  for  which  the  former 
were  tried  were  generally  desertion  and  crimes  of  violence, 
plundering  or  maltreating  the  peasantry.* 

The  way  in  which  the  habitually  criminal  element 
makes  itself  visible  in  this  list  of  court-martials  is  in  the 
not  infrequent  cases  of  scientific  and  habitual  burglary, 
robbery  of  the  convoys  going  to  the  military  chest,  or  of 
the  private  property  of  officers,  and  the  stealing  of  church 
plate — all  offences  often  punished  with  death,  for  Wellington 
rarely  pardoned  the  professional  thief,  though  he  sometimes 
let  off  a  deserter  with  a  sound  flogging.  But  the  queerest 
glimpse  into  the  lowest  stratum  of  the  army  is  the  curious 
anecdote  recorded  in  Napier’s  fifth  volume.  Nonplussed  in 
the  winter  of  1813-14  by  the  refusal  of  the  French  peasantry 
to  accept  the  dollars  or  the  guineas  which  were  all  that  he 
could  offer,  Wellington  determined  to  set  up  a  mint  of  his 
own,  which  should  melt  down  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
silver  and  recoin  it  in  the  form  of  five  franc  pieces.  He 
sent  private  appeals  to  the  colonels  to  find  him  all  the 
professional  coiners  that  they  could  discover  in  the  ranks, 
collected  as  many  as  forty  at  St.  Jean  de  Luz,  and  with 
their  aid  struck  a  large  quantity  of  money,  of  which  he  was 
careful  to  see  that  the  weight  and  the  purity  were  both 
correct.t 

Occasionally  the  gentleman-ranker  was  to  be  found  in 
a  Peninsular  regiment.  He  was  generally  an  “  undesir¬ 
able,”  who  had  enlisted  in  consequence  of  some  disgraceful 
quarrel  with  a  family  who  had  refused  to  do  anything  more 
for  him.  Persistent  drink,  gambling,  or  dishonesty  were 
the  usual  causes  that  had  broken  him — not  undeserved 
misfortune  or  dire  poverty.  Occasionally  he  pulled  himself 

*  In  the  Court  Martials  on  privates  printed  in  General  Orders,  out 
of  280  trials  I  make  out  80  certainly  Irish  names,  and  a  good  many 
more  probably  Irish — while  there  are  only  23  Scots.  There  were 
certainly  not  four  times  as  many  Irish  as  Scots  in  the  Peninsular 
Army,  though  there  were  more  than  twice  as  many. 

f  See  also  Stanhope’s  Conversations  with  Wellington,  p.  6. 


The  Gentleman-Ranker 


215 


together,  became  a  good  soldier,  and  was  ultimately 
promoted  to  a  commission.  More  often  he  sank  into  a 
persistent  drunkard  or  a  criminal.  Surtees  of  the  95tli, 
in  an  interesting  chapter,  gives  the  biographies  of  the  four 
privates  of  this  class  that  he  had  known.*  One  conducted 
himself  well  for  some  years,  became  a  paymaster-sergeant, 
and  then  broke  out  into  a  wild  fit  of  dissipation,  embezzled 
the  company’s  money,  and  committed  suicide  on  detection. 
The  second  was  always  in  scrapes :  finally  he  was  caught 
deserting  to  the  French,  and  was  lucky  to  get  off  with  penal 
servitude  for  life  instead  of  death.  The  third,  “  always 
excessively  wild,”  was  once  made  a  corporal,  but  was  not 
fit  for  that  or  any  other  rank.  The  fourth  was  one  of  the 
exceptional  cases — being  a  retired  lieutenant  without 
friends  or  means,  who  had  enlisted  as  a  private  in  sheer 
poverty.  He  was  an  exemplary  and  deserving  man,  who 
was  soon  made  secretary,  or  private  clerk,  to  his  colonel, 
behaved  excellently,  and  was  in  the  end  restored  to  his 
former  rank  in  the  army  by  interest  made  in  his  behalf. 

A  regiment  on  Peninsular  service  depended  for  its 
strength  on  the  regularity  with  which  it  was  fed  from  its 
home-battalion  or  its  depot.  Whenever  a  convoy  sailed 
from  Spithead,  it  contained  an  immense  number  of  small 
detachments,  varying  from  a  few  scores  to  over  a  hundred 
men,  under  charge  of  officers  newly  gazetted  to  the  service 
battalion,  or  returning  from  sick  leave.  There  was  often 
much  wrangling  on  shipboard  (unless  the  weather  reduced 
every  one  to  the  same  level  of  nausea  and  helplessness), 
not  only  between  the  men  but  between  the  young  officers 
in  charge  of  them.  After  an  angry  comparison  of  the  exact 
date  of  commissions,  which  settled  seniority  in  the  choice 
of  berths,  and  in  dealing  with  the  transport-captain,  two 
ensigns  in  charge  of  detachments  would  often  settle  down 
to  a  feud  destined  to  last  for  the  whole  voyage  to  Lisbon. 
Their  men  gleefully  joined  in  the  wrangle.  There  are 
some  absurd  sidelights,  in  court-martials,  on  these  frequent 
*  Twenty-five.  Years  in  the  Rifle  Brigade,  pp.  47,  48. 


216 


The  Men  of  the  Regiment 


shipboard  quarrels,  which  sometimes  ended  in  affrays  and 
“  conduct  unbecoming  an  officer  and  a  gentleman.” 

When  a  detachment  landed  at  Lisbon,  the  officer  in 
charge,  often  a  lad  of  sixteen,  had  to  shepherd  his  flock  to 
the  front,  perhaps  over  200  miles  of  mountain  roads. 
Neither  officers  nor  men  knew  a  word  of  Portuguese,  or 
had  the  slightest  notion  of  the  manners,  government, 
prejudices,  or  food  of  the  peasantry.  They  went  forward 
in  a  perpetual  haze  of  mistakes  and  misunderstandings. 
Every  draft  had  its  percentage  of  undesirables,  or  even  of 
criminals.  Hence  the*  young  officer,  responsible  for  their 
safe  delivery  at  the  front,  found  himself  embroiled  in 
constant  disputes  with  the  natives,  often  ending  in  his 
arrest  on  his  final  arrival  at  headquarters.  We  must  feel 
nothing  but  sympathy  for  the  unfortunate  young  man  who 
delivered  only  twenty-nine  out  of  a  detachment  of  forty-one 
entrusted  to  him  ;  or  the  other  who  found  that  fourteen  men 
out  of  twenty  had  privately  disposed  of  their  new  blankets.* 
The  only  way  of  managing  the  draft  was  by  reliance  on  the 
sergeant  or  two  who  formed  a  part  of  it :  and  if  the  sergeant 
was  himself  a  sluggard  or  a  tippler,  ill  fared  his  superior. 
Imagine  the  feelings  of  the  second-lieutenant  who  having 
left  his  one  non-commissioned  officer  behind,  to  hunt  up 
footsore  stragglers,  found  no  one  arrive  at  the  nightly 
billet,  and  returning  for  miles  to  seek  the  lost  ones,  dis¬ 
covered  his  sergeant  dead  drunk  and  snoring  in  the  middle 
of  the  high-road. f  Ability  to  conduct  a  draft  to  the  battalion 
was  one  of  the  greatest  tests  of  the  character  and  capacity 
of  a  junior  officer. 

The  responsibility  of  the  non-commissioned  officer 
cannot  be  exaggerated.  It  was  easy  to  make  sergeants, 
but  not  easy  to  secure  them  of  the  proper  quality.  Too 
often  the  man  promoted  for  an  act  of  courage  or  of  quick 
cleverness  had  to  be  reduced  to  the  ranks  again,  for  some 

*  Both  court-martialled,  of  course  :  see  General  Orders,  vol.  vii. 

f  This  incident  occurs  in  the  unprinted  letters  of  F.  Monro,  R.A., 
lent  to  me  by  his  kinsfolk  of  to-day. 


Concerning  Sergeants 


217 


hopeless  failing — he  was  prone  to  drink,*  or  he  was  an 
over-harsh  or  an  over-slack  administrator  of  discipline. 
One  of  the  commoner  types  of  court-martial  was  that  of 
the  non-commissioned  officer  who  connived  at  and  profited 
by  the  misdeeds  of  the  men  under  his  charge — whose 
silence  was  bought  by  a  percentage,  when  peasants  were 
plundered,  or  convoys  lightened  of  food,  shoes,  or  clothing. 
It  was  often  difficult  to  get  at  him — to  prove  that  he  had 
known  of  what  was  going  on,  and  had  contrived  to  see 
nothing.  But  the  numbers  of  reductions  to  the  ranks 
were  notable,  and  lashes  were  often  added  when  part  of 
the  corpus  delicti  was  found  in  the  sergeant’s  pack. 

However,  the  ideal  sergeant  was  not  unfrequently  found, 
and  when  found  he  was  invaluable  ;  he  had  to  be  a  steady 
man  with  a  modicum  of  education  and  a  sense  of  duty, 
who  could  be  relied  upon  neither  to  connive  at  his  men’s 
graver  faults,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  to  be  perpetually 
spying  on  them  and  reporting  them  to  their  captains  for 
every  minute  breach  of  discipline.  Tact  was  as  necessary  as 
the  power  to  get  orders  carried  out.  The  bullying  sergeant 
would,  in  the  end,  get  left  in  some  quandary  or  dilemma  by 
the  men  that  he  was  always  harrying,  while  the  considerate 
sergeant  would  get  the  benefit  of  his  popularity  by  receiving 
loyal  and  intelligent  service  instead  of  mere  obedience. 

Most  important  of  all  non-commissioned  officers  was 
the  sergeant-major,  concerning  whose  position  I  cannot 
do  better  than  quote  the  homily  of  a  Highland  soldier 
more  given  to  philosophical  disquisitions  than  most  of  the 
diarists  from  the  ranks. f 

“  The  sergeant-major  has  an  arduous  duty  to  perform  ; 
in  all  the  arrangements  of  regimental  duty  he  takes,  or  ought 

*  One  of  the  Duke’s  acrid  generalizations  on  this  point  was  “the 
non-commissioned  officers  of  the  Guards  regularly  got  drunk  once 
a  day,  by  eight  in  the  evening,  and  got  to  bed  soon  after — but  they 
always  took  care  to  do  first  what  they  were  bid.” — Stanhope’s  Con¬ 
versations  with  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  p.  18. 

t  See  Anton’s  (42nd,  Black  Watch)  Retrospect  of  a  Military  Life 
pp.  239,  240. 


218 


The  Men  of  the  Regiment 


to  take,  the  most  active  concern.  He  has,  of  course,  been 
considered  by  his  colonel  a  meritorious  man,  before  he  ap¬ 
points  him  to  this  highest  step  to  which  a  non-commissioned 
officer  can  attain  :  and,  as  it  is  frequently  found  necessary 
to  consult  him  on  the  interior  economy  of  the  regiment,  if 
he  is  possessed  of  any  talents  they  are  sure  to  be  seen  and 
called  forth.  Fortunate  is  the  regiment  which  possess  a 
good  sergeant-major.  His  rank  is  not  such  as  to  make  him 
above  associating  with  and  advising  the  other  non-com¬ 
missioned  officers  :  his  own  personal  example  is  the  means 
of  swaying  their  actions  :  he  cautions  them  against  unjust 
oppression,  yet  shrinks  not  from  pointing  out  the  cases 
which  require  coercive  measures.  He  recommends  for 
promotion  those  who  meritoriously  aspire  to  rise  from  the 
ranks.  His  commanding  officer  is  seldom  troubled  with 
complaints,  for  he  settles  them  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
accuser  and  accused.  No  mercenary  motive  actuates  his 
conduct  in  reconciling  differences,  and  his  hands  are  never 
soiled  with  the  gift  of  an  inferior.  To  those  who  are  un¬ 
acquainted  with  the  influence  which  sergeant-majors 
generally  possess  this  may  seem  a  hyperbole  ;  but  to  me 
it  appears  a  fact  ;  I  speak  not  of  one  regiment  but  of  many. 
A  sergeant-major,  on  the  other  hand,  can  be  a  little  tyrant 
in  the  corps,  without  the  knowledge  of  his  colonel  :  his 
unnecessary  acts  of  oppression  may  be  made  to  appear  to 
his  superiors  as  laudable  zeal,  and  his  severity  as  merit 
deserving  reward.  ...  If  the  commanding  officer  be  of 
an  easy,  complying  turn,  or  again  of  a  repulsive,  haughty, 
don’t-trouble-me  disposition,  and  the  adjutant  (which  is 
often  the  case)  not  over  well  informed,  the  sergeant-major 
is  consulted  on  all  occasions.  His  opinion  is  asked  as  to 
character,  he  can  establish  or  injure  at  pleasure,  for  who 
will  be  called  in  to  contradict  him  ?  In  short  he  has  much 
more  to  say  between  the  non-commissioned  officers  and 
the  colonel,  concerning  the  poor  soldiers’  conduct,  than  all 
the  captains  and  subalterns  of  the  regiment.”  * 

*  Retrospect  of  a  Military  Life,  pp.  57, 58. 


The  Sergeant’s  Self-Respect 


219 


The  gap  between  the  sergeant  and  the  men  in  the 
ranks  was  necessarily  a  well-marked  one.  The  non-com¬ 
missioned  officers  kept  together  and  formed  messes  of  their 
own.  “  Pride  and  propriety  ”  kept  them  from  joining  in 
the  carouses  of  the  rank  and  file.  “  He  who  has  once  joined 
the  company  of  sergeants  is  disincluded  for  any  other,”  * 
writes  one  veteran  proud  of  well-deserved  promotions.  The 
non-commissioned  officer  who  was  too  familiar  with  his 
inferiors  was  generally  one  of  those  who  profited  by  their 
misdeeds,  and  would  some  day  be  convicted  of  sharing 
their  plunder,  or  conniving  at  their  excesses. 

*  Memoirs  of  Sergeant  Morley,  5th  Foot,  p.  101. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


THE  AUXILIARIES  :  THE  GERMANS  AND  THE  PORTUGUESE 

Op  the  two  classes  of  foreign  troops  which  assisted  to 
make  up  the  invincible  divisions  of  the  Peninsular  Army, 
the  one  formed  at  the  time  an  integral  part  of  the  British 
military  establishment ;  the  other  was  the  contingent  of 
an  allied  Power,  placed  at  the  disposition  of  Wellington, 
and  incorporated  with  the  units  of  his  host,  but  preserving 
its  own  national  individuality. 

We  must  deal  with  the  first  class  before  we  proceed  to 
explain  the  position  of  the  second.  Copying  old  British 
precedent,  the  governments  of  George  III.  had  taken  into 
pay  a  number  of  foreign  corps  from  the  very  commence¬ 
ment  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  They  were  the  successors 
of  the  Hanoverians  against  whom  the  elder  Pitt  had  railed 
so  fiercely  in  his  hot  youth,  and  of  the  Hessians  who  had 
taken  such  a  prominent  part  in  the  War  of  American 
Independence. 

The  regiments  raised  in  the  early  years  of  the  great 
struggle  with  France  had  mainly  been  composed  of  Swiss, 
or  of  French  royalist  emigres.  Most  of  these  corps  had 
disappeared  by  1809,  and  of  those  of  them  which  survived 
the  majority  were  doing  garrison  duty  in  the  Mediterranean 
and  elsewhere.*  Wellington  never  had  them  under  his 
hand.  The  foreign  troops  which  came  under  his  command 
were  nearly  all  German,  and  consisted  of  regiments  raised 
after  the  rupture  of  the  Peace  of  Am  iens. 

*  The  survivors  in  1800  were  the  regiments  of  do  Meuron,  Rollo, 
Dillon,  and  de  Watteville. 


221 


The  King’s  German  Legion 

By  far  the  largest  number  of  them  belonged  to  that 
admirable  corps  the  King’s  German  Legion,  whose  history 
was  written  with  great  care  and  enthusiasm  by  Ludlow 
Beamish,  while  the  generation  which  fought  in  the  Peninsula 
was  still  alive.  They  were  the  legitimate  representatives 
of  the  old  Electoral  army  of  Hanover,  the  comrades  of  the 
British  troops  in  many  a  fight  of  the  War  of  the  Austrian 
Succession  and  of  the  Seven  Years’  War.  When  in  June, 
1803,  Napoleon  invaded  Hanover,  and  overran  it  with  the 
troops  of  Mortier,  the  15,000  men  who  formed  the  standing 
army  of  the  electorate  could  make  no  effective  resistance. 
They  laid  down  their  arms  in  accordance  with  the  Conven¬ 
tion  of  Lauenburg  (July  5,  1803),  which  disbanded  them, 
and  permitted  officers  and  men  to  go  where  they  pleased, 
with  the  proviso  that  none  of  them  would  bear  arms 
against  Prance  till  they  should  have  been  exchanged 
for  French  officers  or  men  in  the  hands  of  the  English 
Government.* 

The  best  and  most  loyal  of  the  Hanoverian  officers 
began  at  once  to  betake  themselves  to  England,  and  by 
the  end  of  the  year  were  streaming  thither  by  dozens  and 
scores.  Men  soon  began  to  follow  in  considerable  num¬ 
bers,  and  after  two  provisional  infantry  regiments  had  been 
formed  in  August,  a  larger  organization,  to  be  called  the 
King’s  German  Legion,  was  authorized  in  December.  It 
included  light  and  line  infantry,  heavy  and  light  cavalry, 
artillery  and  engineers.  All  through  1804  new  units  were 
being  rapidly  created,  mainly  from  Hanoverians,  but  not 
entirely,  for  other  recruits  of  German  nationality  were 
accepted.  But  all  the  officers,  nearly  all  the  sergeants, 
and  the  large  majority  of  the  rank  and  file  came  from  the 
old  Electoral  army.  By  January,  1805,  there  were  in 

*  This  proviso  was  neither  submitted  to  nor  approved  by  the 
British  Government,  who  refused  to  take  notice  of  it.  Napoleon, 
‘during  many  disputes  as  to  the  exchange  of  prisoners  in  later 
years,  always  found  a  good  excuse  for  breaking  off  negociations  in 
tho  fact  that  he  held  that  4000or  5000  Hanoverians  of  the  K.G.L, 
should  be  reckoned  as  men  requiring  exchango. 


222 


The  Foreign  Auxiliaries 


existence  a  dragoon  and  a  hussar  regiment,  four  Line  and 
two  Light  battalions,  and  five  batteries  of  artillery. 

In  November,  1805,  when  Lord  Cathcart’s  expedition 
sailed  for  the  Weser,  to  make  a  diversion  in  favour  of 
Austria,  the  whole  German  Legion  went  with  him.  For 
a  few  short  weeks  the  invaders  were  in  possession  of  Bremen 
and  Verden,  Stade,  and  Hanover  city,  before  the  news  of 
the  disastrous  peace  that  followed  Austerlitz  came  to  hand. 
During  this  space  immense  numbers  of  Hanoverians  flocked 
to  the  colours,  some  old  soldiers,  others  volunteers  who 
had  not  served  before.  When  the  army  evacuated  Hanover 
in  February,  1806,  it  brought  back  so  many  recruits  that 
the  Legion  was  raised  to  ten  battalions  of  infantry  and 
five  regiments  of  horse. 

These  were  almost  the  last  genuine  Hanoverians  that 
were  raised  for  service  in  the  corps,  for  when  the  electorate 
was  annexed  to  Jerome  Bonaparte’s  “  Kingdom  of  West¬ 
phalia,”  it  became  part  of  the  French  Imperial  system, 
and  was  subjected  to  the  conscription  for  Jerome's  service. 
Only  a  few  individuals  henceforth  succeeded  in  getting  to 
England  and  joining  the  Legion  by  circuitous  ways.  But 
there  were  some  good  recruits  obtained  at  Stralsund  and 
in  Denmark  during  the  Copenhagen  Expedition  at  the 
end  of  1807,  when  the  Legion  was  for  some  weeks  in  the 
Baltic. 

The  battalions  and  squadrons  were  still  mainly  Hano¬ 
verian,  when,  in  1808,  the  larger  half  of  them  was  sent  to 
the  Peninsula.  In  that  year  one  Hussar  regiment  (the  3rd), 
two  Light  and  four  Line  battalions  (Nos.  1,  2,  5,  7),  landed 
in  Portugal.  Of  these  only  the  two  Light  battalions  and  the 
Hussars  marched  with  Moore,  and  re-embarked  for  England 
after  his  disastrous  retreat.  The  four  Line  battalions 
remained  in  Portugal,  as  did  two  German  batteries,  and 
made  part  of  Wellesley’s  original  army  of  1809.  They 
were  joined  in  the  spring  of  that  year  by  the  1st  Hussars, 
who  (as  has  been  already  mentioned)  were  considered  the 
most  efficient  light  cavalry  regiment  in  Portugal,  and 


Recruiting  the  K.G.L.  223 

were  long  the  chosen  comrades  of  Craufurd’s  Light 
Division. 

In  the  spring  of  1811  the  K.G.L.  contingent  in  Portugal 
was  increased  by  the  2nd  Hussars  and  the  two  Light  Batta¬ 
lions,  who  returned  about  two  years  after  their  departure 
in  the  company  of  Moore.  In  the  winter  of  1811-12  the 
two  heavy  dragoon  regiments  joined  Wellington’s  army. 
Thus  in  the  beginning  of  1812  four  of  the  five  cavalry 
regiments,  and  five  (the  7th  Line  battalion  had  gone  home) 
of  the  ten  infantry  battalions  were  serving  in  Spain.  But 
at  the  end  of  the  year  the  2nd  Hussars  were  drafted  back 
to  England,  owing  to  depleted  numbers. 

It  had  now  become  impossible  to  keep  the  ranks  of  the 
Legion  filled  with  the  genuine  Hanoverians  who  had  been 
its  original  nucleus.  Communication  with  the  electorate 
was  completely  cut  off,  and  German  recruits  of  any  kind 
had  to  be  accepted.  Many  of  them  were  volunteers  from 
the  English  prison  camps,  where  thousands  of  Napoleon’s 
German  troops  were  lying.  Of  these  only  a  fraction  were 
Hanoverians  bom.  The  large  majority  could  not,  of 
course,  share  in  the  loyalty  and  enthusiasm  of  the  original 
legionaries,  being  subjects  of  all  manner  of  sovereigns  in 
the  Rheinbund,  who  had  marched  at  Napoleon’s  orders. 
The  quality  of  men  was  much  worse,  and  many  enlisted  only 
to  escape  from  prison  life,  and  readily  deserted  when  they 
reached  the  front,  having  no  interest  in  the  cause  for  which 
they  were  fighting.  From  1811  onward  desertion,  not  at 
all  usual  in  the  early  years  of  the  Legion,  became  very 
common,  and  plunder  and  misconduct  (previously  very 
rare)  were  also  rife.  Matters  became  still  worse  when, 
later  in  the  war,  German  recruits  of  any  sort  became  so 
hard  to  obtain  that  Poles,  Illyrians,  and  miscellaneous 
foreigners  of  any  sort  *  were  drafted  out  to  fill  the  shrinking 

*  I  note  among  the  deserters  from  the  German  Legion  in  1812-14 
the  strange  and  non-Teutonic  names  of  Gormowsky,  Melofsky, 
Schilinsky,  Wutgok,  Prochinsky,  Borofsky,  Ferdinando,  Panderan, 
Kowalzuch,  Matteivich,  etc. 


224 


The  Foreign  Auxiliaries 


ranks.  Hut  the  splendid  Hanoverian  officers  still  con¬ 
tinued  to  get  good  service  out  of  a  rank  and  file  that  was 
no  longer  so  homogeneous  or  loyal  as  it  had  been  when  the 
war  began,  and  the  regiments  of  the  German  Legion,  the 
cavalry  in  especial,  continued  to  be  among  Wellington’s 
most  trusted  troops.  The  charge  of  Bock’s  Heavy  Dragoons 
at  Garcia  Hernandez,  on  the  day  after  Salamanca,  was,  as 
has  been  already  stated,  considered  by  Foy  to  have  been 
the  most  brilliant  and  successful  cavalry  attack  made  in 
the  whole  Peninsular  War.  After  the  peace  of  1814  all 
the  “  mongrels  ”  were  discharged,  and  the  officers  and 
native-born  Hanoverian  rank  and  file  became  the  nucleus 
on  which  the  new  Royal  Army  of  Hanover  was  built  up. 
The  fact  that  the  aliens  had  been  discharged  in  1814  was 
the  cause  of  all  the  K.G.L.  battalions  appearing  at 
Waterloo  in  the  following  year  with  very  small  effectives, 
in  no  case  reaching  500  of  all  ranks. 

Another  foreign  corps  which  served  under  Wellington 
from  the  end  of  1810  till  1814  had  an  origin  and  a  history 
much  resembling  that  of  the  German  Legion.  This  was 
the  Brunswick  Oels  Jagers,  whose  history  starts  from 
1809.  The  hard-fighting  Frederick  William,  Duke  of 
Brunswick,  the  nephew  of  George  III.,  had  made  a  gallant 
diversion  in  Northern  Germany  during  the  Wagram  Cam¬ 
paign.  At  the  head  of  a  small  body  of  adventurers,  he  had 
thrown  himself  into  the  middle  of  Jerome  Bonaparte’s 
Kingdom  of  Westphalia,  and  had  stirred  up  an  insurrection 
there,  particularly  in  his  own  old  hereditary  states.  He 
was  joined  by  several  thousands  of  patriotic  volunteers, 
and  inflicted  a  series  of  small  defeats  on  the  Westphalians. 
But  surrounded  in  the  end  by  overwhelming  numbers  of 
enemies,  he  cut  his  way  to  the  sea,  and  embarked  the 
remnants  of  his  followers  aboard  English  ships  at  Brake 
on  the  Frisian  coast.  The  British  Government  at  once 
offered  to  take  the  refugees  into  its  service,  and  from  them 
organized  the  Brunswick  Oels  Jager  and  Hussar  regiments, 
whose  blackuniform  reproduced  tliatof  the  duke’s  old  troops. 


The  Brunswick  Oels  Jagers 


225 


The  kernel  of  this  corps  was  originally  excellent — the 
officers  were  North-Germans,  largely  Prussians,  who  had 
risked  their  lives  by  joining  an  insurrection  contrary  to 
the  orders  of  their  sovereign,  and  could  never  return  to 
their  homes :  while  the  rank  and  file  had  been  patriotic 
volunteers.  But,  like  the  German  Legion,  the  Brunswick 
regiment  could  find  no  more  recruits  of  this  sort  when  it 
had  left  Germany,  and  soon  had  to  depend  for  the  con¬ 
tinuance  of  its  existence  on  the  men  in  the  English  prison 
camps,  who  could  be  induced  to  buy  a  release  from  confine¬ 
ment  by  enlisting  in  the  British  service.  It  is  clear  that 
the  German  Legion  got  the  best  of  these  turncoats,  and 
that  the  worst  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  Brunswick  corps.  Not 
only  Germans  but  Poles,  Swiss,  Danes,  Dutch,  and  Croats 
were  drafted  into  it.  They  were  a  motley  crew,  much 
given  to  desertion — on  several  occasions  large  parties  went 
off  together.  One  great  court-martial  in  1811  sat  on  ten 
Brunswick  Oels  deserters  in  a  body,  and  ordered  four  to  be 
shot  and  the  rest  to  be  flogged.  Such  men  had  all  the 
vices  of  the  mercenary,  though  in  time  of  battle  they 
displayed  many  of  the  virtues.  Their  officers  had  a  hard 
task  to  keep  them  together,  and  they  could  never  be  trusted 
at  the  outposts.  But  the  regiment  was  full  of  good  shots 
and  bold  adventurers,  and  furnished  several  of  the  detached 
rifle  companies  with  which  Wellington  strengthened  the 
light  infantry  of  his  brigades. 

There  was,  however,  one  foreign  regiment  which  was 
even  more  tiresome  to  manage  than  the  Black  Brunswickers. 
This  was  the  Chasseurs  Britanniques,  a  corps  formed  early 
in  the  Revolutionary  War  from  French  royalists,  and  taken 
into  the  British  Service  in  1801.  It  was  recruited  entirely 
from  deserters  of  all  sorts  when  it  came  out  to  Portugal  in 
the  spring  of  181 1 .  At  absconding  it  was  far  worse  than  the 
Brunswickers — the  latter  were  raised  from  many  races,  but 
at  least  they  were  not  born  Frenchmen  as  were  the  most 
important  section  of  the  Chasseurs.  A  glance  down  the 
names  of  the  rank  and  file  of  the  corps  seems  to  show  that 

Q 


226 


The  Foreign  Auxiliaries 


after  Frenchmen  the  next  most  important  section  were 
Italians,  and  that  there  were  a  few  Poles  and  some  Swiss, 
the  latter  supplying  the  men  with  Teutonic  names.  It 
seems  to  have  been  the  working  rule  with  the  officers  who 
accepted  volunteers  from  the  prison-camps  to  draft  French 
and  Italians  into  the  Chasseurs,  while  Germans  of  all  sorts 
went  into  the  Legion  or  the  Brunswick  Corps,  and  Swiss 
partly  into  the  Chasseurs,  partly  into  Watteville’s  old  Swiss 
regiment:  Poles  and  Croats  went  anywhere.  Now  a  German 
prisoner  who  volunteered  into  the  British  service  might 
do  so  from  patriotic  motives,  and  make  an  excellent  soldier. 
A  Swiss  or  an  Italian  or  an  Illyrian  could  not  be  very 
heavily  blamed  for  desertion — he  had  been  conscribed,  and 
sent  to  fight  for  Napoleon,  in  a  quarrrel  that  was  not  his 
own.  But  the  French  deserter  was  no  longer  an  old  royalist, 
like  the  emigre  soldiers  of  1794,  but  one  of  two  things. 
Either  he  was  a  man  who  enlisted  in  the  Chasseurs  simply 
to  get  a  chance  of  deserting  back  to  his  own  friends,  or 
else  he  was  a  mauvais  sujet,  a  man  without  patriotic  feeling 
or  morality,  who  was  ready  to  fight  against  his  own  country¬ 
men  for  pay  or  plunder.  Both  classes  were  amply  repre¬ 
sented  :  the  former  fled  back  to  the  French  ranks  when 
they  could,  often  taking  valuable  information  with  them. 
The  latter  were  the  worst  class  of  mercenaries,  since  they 
had  no  inspiring  cause  to  keep  them  true  to  their  colours, 
while  individually  they  were  for  the  most  part  bad  characters 
who  had  been  the  curse  of  their  regiments  while  in  the 
French  service. 

The  unenviable  task  of  keeping  together  this  body  of 
deserters  and  adventurers  fell  to  a  body  of  officers  who 
were  almost  without  exception  furious  French  royalists, 
the  second  generation  of  the  emigres.  They  looked  upon 
the  war  with  Bonaparte  as  a  family  feud,  in  which  they 
fought  under  any  colours  (many  of  their  kin  were  in  the 
Russian  or  the  Austrian,  or  the  Spanish  service)  in  order 
to  avenge  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.,  the  atrocities  of  the 
Terror,  or  the  Massacres  of  Quiberon.  With  old  loyalty 


The  Chasseurs  Beitanniques  227 

to  the  Bourbons,  and  personal  hatred  for  the  new  French 
regime  as  their  inspiration,  they  were  fierce  and  desperate 
fighters.  They  kept  the  miscellaneous  horde  committed 
to  their  charge  under  an  iron  discipline,  and  used  the  lash 
freely.  All  that  their  personal  courage  could  accomplish 
was  done,  to  make  the  Chasseurs  an  efficient  fighting  force. 
But  they  could  not  stop  desertion,  nor  frequent  misconduct. 
The  most  astonishing  court-martial  in  the  war  was  that 
held  on  October  5,  1812,  upon  no  less  than  18  Chasseurs 
who  had  deserted  in  a  body,  two  corporals  and  16  men,  of 
whom  all  but  two  bore  Italian  names.*  This  was  only 
the  largest  case  of  a  constant  series  of  defections.  The 
regiment  melted  away  whenever  it  came  near  the  French 
lines,  and  Wellington  had  a  standing  order  that  it  must 
never  be  trusted  with  the  outposts.  Yet  as  a  fighting 
body  it  had  no  bad  record — as  witness  Fuentes  de  Onoro 
and  many  other  fields.  This  was  the  work  of  the  zealous 
service  of  its  officers — and  was  indeed  a  wonderful  tour  de 
force.  The  material  with  which  they  had  to  work  was 
detestable. 

These  were  the  only  foreign  corps,  strictly  speaking,  in 
Wellington’s  army,  but  there  were  two  more  units  which 
had  a  large,  indeed  a  preponderating,  German  element  in 
them,  though  they  were  numbered  in  the  British  line. 
These  were  the  5/60th,  the  rifle  battalion  of  the  “  Royal 
Americans,”  and  the  97th,  a  single-battalion  corps  which 
started  its  existence  as  Stuart’s  “  Minorca  Regiment,”  but 
got  a  place  in  the  British  line  in  1804  as  the  “  Queen’s 
Germans.”  Neither  of  these  battalions  were  purely  German 
either  in  officers  or  men :  of  the  5/60th  the  disembarkation 
roll  on  its  original  landing  in  Portugal  shows  eighteen  officers 
with  German  and  ten  with  British  names.!  The  colonel,  De 
Rottenbourg,  was  a  foreigner,  but  the  second  in  command, 

*  The  other  two  names  are  one  Swiss  the  other  Croatian. 

t  Names  such  as  Davy,  Woodgate,  Galiffo,  Andrews,  McKenzie, 
Holmes,  Linstow,  Wynne,  Joyce,  Gilbert  are  unmistakably  British. 
See  Colonel  Rigaud’s  History  of  the  5/60 th,  Appendix  i. 


228 


The  Foreign  Auxiliaries 


Davy,  an  Englishman.  The  British  element  was  not  pro¬ 
portionally  so  strong  in  the  rank  and  file  at  the  commence¬ 
ment  of  the  war,  but  was  apparently  increasing  as  it  went 
on.  English  and  Irish  recruits  were  drafted  in,  in  order 
that  such  a  fine  corps  might  not  be  spoilt  with  the  bad 
class  of  German  recruit  such  as  was  alone  procurable  in 
1812  or  1813.  When  the  corps  returned  from  the  Peninsula 
in  1814  it  had  only  nine  officers  with  German  names  and 
twelve  with  British,  and  I  fancy  the  balance  in  the  rank 
and  file  between  the  nationalities  had  changed  in  the  same 
way.  When  amalgamated  with  the  l/60th,  after  the  end 
of  the  war  it  had  certainly  400  British  to  something  under 
300  Germans  in  its  ranks. 

This  was  a  most  distinguished  corps  :  the  green-coated 
rifle  companies  which  it  supplied  to  many  brigades  of  the 
Peninsular  Army  were  universally  praised  for  their  cool 
courage  and  admirable  marksmanship.  The  battalion  had 
very  few  deserters  save  for  one  period  in  1808-9,  when  it 
had  received  a  batch  of  recruits  from  Junot’s  Army  of 
Portugal,  who  proved  unsatisfactory.  It  would  be  an 
absolute  insult  to  the  5/60th  to  class  them  with  the  Bruns- 
wickers  or  the  Ghasseurs  Britanniques. 

The  97th  being  a  single-battalion  corps,  with  nothing 
to  maintain  it  but  a  depot  which  could  only  collect  German 
recruits  in  the  same  fashion  as  the  K.G.L.,  wasted  down 
to  a  very  small  remnant  after  two  years  of  war,  and  was 
sent  back  to  England  in  1811,  with  a  handsome  epitaph  of 
praise  by  Wellington.  It  never  got  to  the  front  again, 
remained  at  home  on  a  very  weak  establishment,  and  was 
disbanded  at  the  end  of  the  war.  Like  the  5/60th  it  was 
not  wholly  German  ;  among  the  officers  we  find  individuals 
with  British  names  like  Carter,  Biscoe,  Wilson,  Lyon. 
Its  colonel  and  one  of  its  two  majors  were  English, 
and  there  was  a  proportion  of  non-Germans  among  its 
rank  and  file.  Its  Peninsular  record  if  short  was 
distinguished. 

It  remains  to  speak  about  the  Portuguese,  who  formed 


The  Portuguese  Army  in  1809 


229 


about  two-fifths  of  Wellington’s  fighting  force.  We  have 
already  had  occasion  to  speak  of  the  way  in  which  they 
were  distributed  among  the  British  troops,  when  dealing 
with  the  character  of  Beresford,*  and  the  composition  of 
the  Peninsular  divisions. t  But  the  inner  mechanism  of 
the  Portuguese  army  remains  to  be  detailed.  It  consisted 
in  1809  of  twenty-four  regiments  of  infantry  of  the  line, 
each  of  two  battalions,  save  the  21st  which  had  been  cut 
up  at  Soult’s  storm  of  Oporto  in  March,  and  only  mustered 
one.J  There  were  also  six  light  infantry  battalions  of 
ca9adores,  all  raised  in  1808-9,  and  twelve  weak  regiments 
of  horse.  The  artillery,  divided  into  four  local  regiments 
of  unequal  strength  (those  of  Lisbon,  Oporto,  Elvas,  and 
Algarve),  supplied  nine  or  ten  field  batteries,  and  a  number 
of  garrison  companies  which  manned  the  guns  of  Elvas, 
Almeida,  Abrantes,  Peniche,  and  many  other  minor  for¬ 
tresses.  There  was  in  addition  an  abnormal  corps,  the  Loyal 
Lusitanian  Legion,  raised  by  Sir  Robert  Wilson  at  Oporto  in 
1808,  which  furnished  three  battalions  of  light  infantry,  a 
squadron  of  horse  and  an  incomplete  battery.  This  legion, 
which  had  done  very  good  service  in  1809-10,  was  absorbed 
into  the  regular  army  in  1811,  its  three  battalions  becoming 
the  7th,  8th,  and  9th  cay  adores.  At  the  same  time  Welling¬ 
ton  ordered  the  raising  of  three  new  light  battalions  bearing 
the  numbers  10,  11,  and  12. 

The  establishment  of  a  Portuguese  two-battalion  line 
regiment  was  nominally  1540  men,  that  of  a  cay ado r 
battalion  770  men  :  they  were  each  divided  into  six  strong 
companies.  The  cavalry  regiments,  with  a  nominal  effective 
of  590  men,  seldom  showed  300  apiece  in  the  field.  The 
infantry  corps,  with  the  conscription  to  keep  their  ranks  full, 
could  from  1809  onward  generally  take  the  field  with  over 
1200  of  all  ranks,  not  including  men  in  hospital  or  detached, 
and  very  seldom  shrank  as  low  as  1000.  The  cayador 
battalions  were  generally  somewhat  weaker  in  proportion 


*  See  p.  120.  f  See  pp.  108-9. 

I  This  corps  only  raised  its  second  battalion  in  1811. 


230  The  Foreign  Auxiliaries 

to  their  nominal  effective,  rarely  showing  more  than  500 
men  in  line. 

The  organization  of  the  Portuguese  Army  was  made  on 
a  strictly  local  basis,  each  of  the  twenty-four  line  regiments 
having  its  proper  recruiting  district.  Two  corps  were 
furnished  by  the  province  of  Algarve,  five  by  the  Alemtejo, 
four  by  Lisbon  city  and  its  surrounding  district,  three  by 
the  rest  of  Portuguese  Estremadura,  four  by  the  Beira, 
four  by  Oporto  and  the  Entre-Douro-e-Minho,  and  two  by 
Tras-os-Montes.  *  Some  of  the  recruiting-districts  being 
less  populous  than  others,  had  a  greater  difficulty  in  keeping 
up  their  territorial  regiments.  This  was  especially  the  case 
with  the  five  corps  of  the  Alemtejo,  where  the  waste  bears 
a  greater  proportion  to  the  inhabited  land  than  in  other 
provinces  of  Portugal. 

The  ca§ador  battalions  were  mainly  raised  in  the  better 
peopled  north,  which  supplied  not  only  the  three  (Nos.  7, 
8,  9),  formed  from  the  Lusitanian  Legion  (all  raised  in  and 
about  Oporto),  but  also  numbers  3,4,  6,  and  after  1811  the 
additional  numbers  10,  11,  12.  The  southern  provinces 
only  provided  numbers  1,  2,  5.  These  brown  and  dark 
green  battalions,  whose  sombre  colours  contrasted  strongly 
with  the  bright  blue  and  white  of  the  Portuguese  line,t 
supplied,  along  with  the  green  British  riflemen,  the  main 
skirmishing  line  of  Wellington’s  army.  Eight  of  the 
twelve  were  raised  and  commanded  by  British  officers,  only 
the  remaining  four  by  Portuguese  colonels. 

Portugal  is  not  a  country  abounding  in  horses,  and 
of  the  twelve  dragoon  regiments  of  which  its  cavalry 

*  Algarve,  Nos.  2  (Lagos)  and  14  (Tavira).  Alemtejo,  Nos. 
5  and  17  (1st  and  2nd  of  Elvas),  8  (Evora),  20  (Campomayor),  22 
(Serpa).  Lisbon,  Nos.  1,  4,  10, 16.  Estremadura,  No.  7  (Setubal), 
19  (Cascaes),  11  (Peniche).  Beira,  Nos.  3  and  15  (raised  in  the 
Lamego  district),  11  and  23  (1st  and  2nd  of  Almeida).  Oporto 
region,  Nos.  6  and  18  (1st  and  2nd  of  Oporto),  9  (Viana),  21 
(Valenga).  Tras-os-Montes,  Nos.  12  (Chaves),  and  24  (Braganza). 

f  The  three  Lusitanian  battalions  wore  a  uniform  of  ivy-green, 
the  nine  others  a  dark  brown  dross.  Tho  cut  of  both  was  fashioned 
in  imitation  of  that  of  the  British  Rifle  Brigade. 


Beresford’s  Work 


23] 


consisted,  three  (Nos.  2,  3,  12)  were  never  put  into  the  field 
at  all,  but  utilized  .as  dismounted  troops  in  garrison  duty. 
Of  the  other  nine  corps  several  were  mere  fragments,  and 
none  ever  took  anything  like  its  establishment  of  500  sabres 
to  the  front.  Three  hundred  was  as  much  as  was  usually 
shown  :  in  the  1811  campaign  the  two  regiments  which 
Wellington  used  in  the  Fuentes  de  Onoro  campaign  had 
not  450  mounted  men  between  them. 

Beresford’s  conversion  of  the  disorganized  and  depleted 
army  of  which  he  took  the  command  in  1809  into  a  service¬ 
able  and  well-disciplined  force  was  a  remarkable  achievement 
He  found  it  in  a  chaotic  state — Junot  had  disbanded  the 
whole,  save  a  few  battalions  which  he  sent  to  France  to 
serve  Napoleon.  The  regiments  had  collected  again  as 
best  they  could,  but  the  cadres  were  incomplete,  and  the 
corps  of  officers  left  much  to  be  desired.  The  Portuguese 
army  before  1808  had  all  the  typical  faults  of  an  army  of 
the  ancien  regime  which  had  rusted  in  a  long  period  of  peace. 
It  was  full  of  old  or  incapable  officers  put  into  place  by  court 
intrigues  or  family  influence.  Promotion  was  irregular  and 
perfectly  arbitrary  ;  the  lower  commissioned  ranks  of  the 
regiments  were  choked  with  officers  whose  want  of  education 
and  military  knowledge  made  them  unfit  for  higher  posts. 
They  had  often  grown  grey  as  lieutenants,  and  were  per¬ 
fectly  useless  in  a  crisis.  The  pay  was  very  low,  and  the 
temptation  to  make  up  for  the  want  of  it  by  petty  jobbing 
and  embezzlement  too  strong. 

When  Beresford  took  command,  in  the  early  spring  of 
1809,  he  had  found  about  30,000  regular  troops  in  arms 
on  an  establishment  which  ought  to  have  shown  nearly 
60,000.  The  deficiency  in  mere  numbers  could  be  remedied 
by  a  stringent  use  of  the  conscription  :  but  the  deficiencies 
of  organization  could  not.  Beresford  complained  that 
“Long  habits  of  disregard  of  duty,  and  consequent  laziness, 
made  it  not  only  difficult  but  almost  impossible  to  induce 
many  senior  officers  to  enter  into  any  regular  and  continued 
attention  to  the  duties  of  their  situations,  and  neither 


232 


The  Foreign  Auxiliaries 


reward  nor  punishment  would  induce  them  to  bear  up 
against  the  fatigue.”  *  In  the  lower  ranks  there  was  a 
good  deal  of  zeal,  there  being  great  numbers  of  young 
officers  from  the  higher  classes,  who  had  just  accepted 
commissions  from  patriotic  motives ;  but  there  was  also  a 
heavy  dead- weight  of  old  and  slack  officers,  and  an  appalling 
want  of  professional  knowledge. 

Beresford  made  it  a  condition  of  accepting  his  post  that 
he  should  be  allowed  a  free  hand  to  retain,  dismiss,  or 
promote,  and  should  be  permitted  to  introduce  a  certain 
amount  of  British  officers  into  the  army.  The  Regency 
granted  his  request,  of  necessity  and  not  with  enthusiasm. 
He  then  proceeded  to  use  his  permission  with  great  energy. 
A  vast  number  of  old  officers,  both  in  the  higher  and  lower 
ranks,  were  put  on  half  pay  :  only  a  minority  of  the  colonels 
and  generals  were  retained  on  active  service.  All  the 
regiments  which  had  been  cursed  with  notoriously  inefficient 
commanders  were  placed  in  charge  of  British  officers,  of 
whom  four  or  five  were  drafted  into  every  unit.  Beresford’s 
system  was  that  “  since  national  feeling  required  manage¬ 
ment,”  and  “  he  must  humour  and  satisfy  the  pride  of  the 
nation,”  a  sufficient  number  of  the  higher  places  must  be 
left  to  natives,  but  each  must  have  British  officers  either 
immediately  over  or  immediately  under  him.  Where  a 
Portuguese  general  commanded  a  brigade,  it  was  managed 
that  the  colonels  of  his  two  regiments  should  both  be 
English.  Where  there  was  a  Portuguese  colonel,  his  senior 
major  was  English ;  where  an  English  colonel,  his  senior 
major  was  Portuguese.  In  addition  there  were  two,  three, 
or  four  British  captains  in  each  regiment,  but  hardly  any 
subalterns.  For,  to  encourage  good  officers  to  volunteer 
into  the  Portuguese  service,  it  was  provided  that  every 
one  doing  so  should  receive  a  step  in  promotion,  lieutenants 
becoming  captains,  and  captains  majors.  This  system 
seems  to  have  worked  well,  though  friction  was  bound  to 
occur,  since  the  blow  to  Portuguese  national  pride,  when 
*  Beresford  to  Wellington,  Supplementary  Dispatches,  vi.  p.  774. 


The  Portuguese  Officers  233 

so  many  high  posts  were  given  to  foreigners,  was  a 
heavy  one. 

Yet  according  to  those  who  had  the  working  of  the  newly 
organized  army  in  their  hands,  the  effect  was  very  satis¬ 
factory.  “  The  Portuguese  captains  are  piqued  into 
activity  and  attention,  when  they  see  their  companies 
excelled  in  efficiency  by  those  under  English,  and  do  from 
emulation  what  a  sense  of  duty  would  never,  perhaps, 
bring  them  to.  There  are  a  variety  of  oblique  means  and 
by-paths  by  which  the  parts  of  a  Portuguese  corps  are 
constantly,  and  almost  insensibly,  tending  to  return  to  their 
old  habits,  to  which  they  are  so  much  attached.  To  nip 
this  tendency,  from  time  to  time,  in  the  bud,  it  is  necessary 
to  be  aware  of  it  :  without  the  constant  surveillance  of 
English  subordinate  officers  (who  ever  mingling  with  the 
mass  of  the  men  cannot  but  be  aware  of  what  is  going  on) 
the  commanding  officer  can  rarely  be  warned  in  time.”  * 
D’Urban,  the  author  of  this  memorandum,  adds  that  one 
of  his  great  difficulties  was  to  secure  that  the  junior  officers 
of  the  old  noble  families  were  kept  up  to  their  work.  ‘  ‘  Even 
supposing  a  sufficient  energy  of  character  in  a  native  officer, 
he  does  not,  and  will  not,  unless  he  be  a  jidalgo  himself, 
exercise  coercive  or  strong  measures  to  oblige  one  of  that 
class  to  do  his  duty.  He  is  aware  that  by  doing  so  he  will 
make  a  powerful  enemy,  and  all  the  habits  of  thought  in 
which  he  has  been  educated  inspire  him  with  such  a  dread 
of  this,  that  no  sense  of  duty  will  urge  him  to  encounter  it. 
Whenever  a  regiment  is  commanded  by  a  non -fidalgo  it 
never  fails  to  suffer  extremely  :  the  noblemen  are  per¬ 
mitted  to  do  as  they  please,  and  set  a  very  bad  example.” 
The  only  remedy  was  to  see  that  any  regiment  where  the 
fidalgos  were  numerous  had  an  English  colonel. 

Such  were  the  difficulties  under  which  Beresford  and 
the  body  of  picked  British  officers  whom  he  selected  as 

*  From  a  memorandum  by  Benjamin  D’Urban,  Berosford’s 
Quarte rmaster-Goneral,  or  rather  Chief  of  the  Staff,  in  the  unpublished 
D’Urban  papers. 


234 


The  Foreign  Auxiliaries 


his  subordinates  built  up  the  army,  which  by  1811  was 
fit  to  take  its  place  in  battle  line  along  with  its  allies,  and 
in  1812-14  did  some  of  the  most  brilliant  service  of  the 
Peninsular  War.  Some  of  the  exploits  of  the  Portuguese 
brigades  hardly  obtain  in  Napier’s  history  the  prominence 
that  is  their  due.  While  he  acknowledges  the  good  service 
of  the  Light  Division  ca9adores  at  Bussaco  and  elsewhere, 
there  is  scarcely  praise  enough  given  to  Harvey’s  brigade  at 
Albuera,  who  received  and  repulsed  in  line  the  charge  of 
Latour-Maubourg’s  dragoons,  a  feat  of  which  any  British 
troops  would  have  been  proud.  And  the  desperate  resist¬ 
ance  for  many  hours  of  Ashworth’s  Portuguese  at  St.  Pierre 
near  Bayonne  is  hardly  noticed  with  sufficient  gratitude — 
forming  the  centre  of  Hill’s  thin  line,  pressed  upon  by 
overwhelming  numbers,  and  with  both  flanks  turned  from 
time  to  time,  they  fought  out  a  whole  long  morning  of 
battle,  and  never  gave  way  an  inch,  though  their  line  was 
reduced  to  a  thin  chain  of  skirmishers  scattered  along  a 
hedge  and  a  coppice.  The  advance  of  the  13th  and  24th 
Portuguese  at  the  storm  of  St.  Sebastian,  across  a  ford 
200  yards  wide  and  waist-deep,  swept  by  artillery  fire  from 
end  to  end,  does  however  receive  from  Napier  its  due  meed 
of  admiration.  This  was  a  great  achievement — every 
wounded  man  was  doomed  to  drowning  :  on  the  other  side 
was  the  blazing  breach,  where  the  British  assault  had  come 
to  a  dead  stop  after  dreadful  slaughter,  but  the  Portuguese 
regiments  won  their  way  over  the  deadly  water,  and  took 
their  share  in  the  final  assault  with  unflinching  courage. 

On  the  whole,  the  ca§ador  battalions  had  the  finest 
record  in  the  Portuguese  Army,  the  cavalry  the  least  satis¬ 
factory.  Some  good  work  is  recorded  of  them,  e.g.  the 
charge  of  Madden’s  squadrons  saved  the  whole  of  La 
Romana’s  army  at  the  combat  of  Fuente  del  Maestre  in 
1810,  and  that  of  D’Urban’s  brigade  gave  efficient  help  to 
Pakenham’s  great  flank  attack  at  Salamanca  in  1812. 
But  there  were  some  “  untoward  incidents,”  such  as  the 
general  bolt  at  the  battle  of  the  Gebora,  and  the  panic 


The  Portuguese  Militia 


235 


at  the  combat  of  Majadahonda,  just  before  Wellington’s 
entry  into  Madrid.  Of  the  last  D’Urban  writes,*  “  My 
poor  fellows  are  still  a  most  daily  and  uncertain  sort  of 
fighting  people.  At  Salamanca  they  followed  me  into  the 
enemy’s  ranks  like  British  dragoons  ;  yesterday  they  were 
so  far  from  doing  their  duty  that  in  the  first  charge  they 
just  went  far  enough  to  land  me  in  the  enemy’s  ranks.  In  the 
second,  which  (having  got  them  rallied)  I  rashly  attempted, 
I  could  not  get  them  within  20  yards  of  the  enemy — they 
left  me  alone,  and  vanished  before  the  French  helmets  like 
leaves  before  the  autumn  wind.  They  require  a  little 
incentive  of  shouts,  and  the  inspiring  cheers  of  a  British 
line  advancing  near  them.  I  am  afraid  they  will  never  be 
quite  safe  by  themselves,  or  in  silence.”  These  are  bitter 
words,  but  the  record  of  Majadahonda  is  not  a  creditable 
one. 

Of  the  Portuguese  militia  and  the  irregular  levies  of 
the  Ordenan9a  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak  here  at  length. 
They  formed  part  of  Wellington’s  tools  for  carrying  on  the 
war,  but  not  of  his  army.  For,  excepting  in  the  Lines  of 
Torres  Vedras,  he  never  put  the  militia  side  by  side  with 
the  regulars,  but  always  left  them  out  in  the  open  country, 
to  watch  frontiers  or  harass  French  lines  of  communication. 
They  were  under  strict  orders  not  to  fight — orders  which 
enterprising  officers  like  Silveira  and  Trant  sometimes 
disobeyed,  to  their  own  sorrow.  Their  duty  was  to  screen 
the  country-side  against  small  French  detachments,  to 
make  the  movement  of  the  enemy  save  in  large  bodies 
impossible,  to  capture  convoys,  or  to  cut  off  stragglers. 
Their  most  brilliant  exploit  was  the  capture  of  Massena’s 
hospitals  at  Coimbra  in  1810.  More  could  not  be  expected 
from  levies  only  intermittently  under  arms,  not  furnished 
with  proper  uniforms,  and  officered  by  civilians,  or  by  the 
inefficients  weeded  out  of  the  regular  army.  They  were  a 
valuable  asset  in  Wellington’s  hands,  but  not  a  real  fighting 

*  From  n  letter  to  his  friend,  J.  Wilson,  in  the  unpublished 
D’Urban  Correspondence. 


236 


The  Foreign  Auxiliaries 


force.  Even  far  on  in  the  war,  so  late  as  1812,  whole 
brigades  of  them  broke  up  in  panic  in  face  of  a  very  small 
force  of  cavalry — as  at  the  unhappy  combat  of  Guarda, 
where  Trant  and  Wilson  tried  to  do  too  much  with  these 
amateurs. 

As  to  the  ordenan§a  or  levee  en  masse ,  it  had  not  even 
the  organization  of  the  militia,  and  was  largely  armed  with 
pikes  for  want  of  muskets.  Its  only  duty  was  to  infest 
the  countryside  and  prevent  the  enemy  from  foraging. 
The  French  shot  them  as  “  brigands  ”  whenever  caught ; 
it  was  their  natural  practice  to  retaliate  by  making  away 
with  all  stragglers  and  marauders  who  fell  into  their 
hands.  Wellington  offered  a  bounty  for  prisoners,  but  it 
was  not  very  often  asked  for,  or  paid. 


CHAPTER  XIV 


DISCIPLINE  AND  COURT-MARTIALS 

In  the  chapters  that  dealt  with  the  officers  and  the  men 
of  the  Peninsular  Army,  we  have  had  occasion  to  speak  of 
the  percentage  of  undesirables  that  were  to  be  found  in 
every  rank,  and  of  their  special  weaknesses  and  crimes.  It 
is  necessary  to  explain  the  way  in  which  the  British  military 
code  of  the  day  dealt  with  them. 

For  the  officers  there  was  a  long  gradation  of  punish¬ 
ments,  ranging  down  from  a  simple  reprimand  to  dis¬ 
charge  from  the  service  with  ignominy.  For  the  non¬ 
commissioned  officers  reduction  to  the  ranks  was  the  most 
usual  chastisement  inflicted  ;  but  in  cases  of  a  particularly 
disgraceful  sort,  the  lash  was  not  infrequently  allotted  as 
an  additional  penalty.  For  the  rank  and  file  flogging  was 
the  universal  panacea  ;  the  amount  of  strokes  might  range 
up  from  a  minimum  twenty-five  strokes — which  was  a 
mere  nothing  to  the  habitual  offender,  but  a  serious  thing 
for  the  good  soldier  who  lost  much  of  his  morale  when 
once  he  had  “  gone  to  the  halberds,”  even  for  such  a  light 
punishment.  The  maximum,  a  very  unusual  one,  was 
1200  strokes,  an  amount  calculated  to  kill  many  men,  and 
to  permanently  disable  many  more.  But  this  awful  tale 
of  lashes  was  not  very  frequently  awarded,  being  reserved 
for  bad  cases  of  desertion  to  the  enemy,  robbery  with 
violence,  or  striking  an  officer,  all  of  them  offences  which 
might  have  had  death  as  their  punishment.  As  far  as  I  can 
count,  1200  lashes  were  only  awarded  nine  or  ten  times  by 
general  court-martial  during  the  whole  six  years  of  the  war. 


23S 


Discipline  and  Court-Martials 


The  hardly  less  severe  sentence  of  1000  lashes  was  given 
more  frequently — over  50  cases  may  be  reckoned  up — the 
offences  were  the  same  as  those  which  earned  the  still  heavier 
maximum  amount.  During  the  latter  years  of  the  war, 
from  1811  onward,  two  additional  forms  of  punishment  for 
very  serious  crimes  were  invented.  The  first,  mainly 
reserved  for  deserters  who  had  not  gone  over  to  the  enemy, 
but  had  simply  left  the  colours  and  hidden  themselves  in 
the  Peninsula,  was  long  service  in  a  colonial  corps,  such 
as  the  African  or  the  New  South  Wales  Regiment.  The 
other,  a  much  more  severe  sentence,  was  that  of  penal 
servitude,  either  for  a  term  of  years  (seven  was  the  usual 
period),  or  for  life.  The  penal  settlement  to  which  the 
convict  was  sent  is  generally  stated,  and  is  almost  invariably 
New  South  Wales.  This  sentence  was  generally  awarded 
for  cases  of  repeated  desertion  (not  to  the  enemy)  and 
habitual  theft  without  violence.  The  moment  that  violence 
was  added  to  robbery,  the  offender  came  within  a  near 
distance  of  the  gallows  or  of  the  much-dreaded  1000  lashes — 
which  often  had  the  same  meaning  in  the  end. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  give  some  account  of  the  various 
causes  for  which  an  officer  might  incur  the  heaviest  penalty 
that  could  be  laid  on  him — to  be  cashiered.  This  sentence 
was  awarded  some  thirty  times  during  the  war.  Twice 
only  was  it  the  reward  of  shirking  or  cowardice.  In  three 
or  four  cases  it  was  inflicted  for  swindling  merchants  ;  in 
as  many  more  for  embezzling  public  money  or  stores. 
Five  or  six  were  instances  of  insulting  or  openly  disobeying 
a  commanding  officer.  Three  or  four  cashierings  were  the 
direct  result  of  drink — the  offender  having  been  found 
intoxicated  and  incapable  while  on  duty  in  a  responsible 
position.  The  most  repulsive  case  of  the  whole  list  was 
one  where  drunkenness  was  the  indirect,  but  not  the  actual, 
cause  of  disgrace.  Three  young  officers,  at  the  break  up 
of  a  debauch,  found  the  corpse  of  a  priest  lying  in  state 
in  a  room  in  the  quarters  where  two  of  them  were  lodged. 
They  mishandled  it,  and  cast  it  forth,  stripping  off  the 


Cashiering  of  Officers 


239 


vestments,  and  breaking  the  candles,  etc.,  with  which  it 
was  laid  out.*  This  disgusting  freak,  apparently  caused  by 
drunken  resentment  at  finding  a  corpse  in  close  proximity 
to  their  bedroom,  drew  down  a  commentary  from  Wellington 
as  to  the  noxious  effects  of  drink — which  not  only  makes 
men  incapable  of  performing  their  duty,  but  renders  them 
“  unaware  of  the  nature  or  effect  of  their  actions.” 

The  remaining  cases  of  cashiering  were  for  such  offences 
as  public  and  disgraceful  brawling,  violently  resisting 
arrest,  and  flagrant  immorality .f  There  is  just  one  case 
of  dismissal  from  the  service  for  tyranny — that  of  a  colonel 
who  habitually  bullied  his  officers  and  inflicted  arbitrary 
and  illegal  punishments  on  his  men.  J  Of  this  I  shall  have 
to  say  more  in  its  place. 

All  the  thirty  cashierings  cited  above  are  those  of 
combatant  officers.  There  are  about  an  equal  number  of 
cases  in  which  persons  employed  under  the  civil  depart¬ 
ments  of  the  army  were  dismissed  the  service — commissaries, 
purveyors,  surgeons,  hospital  mates,  etc.  In  the  com¬ 
missariat  department  (as  might  have  been  foreseen)  em¬ 
bezzlement  was  the  snare  to  unscrupulous  men,  often  far 
from  the  eye  of  their  superior — it  was  too  easy  to  issue 
false  vouchers  as  to  the  number  of  men  or  horses  rationed, 
or  to  make  corrupt  agreements  with  contractors  or  local 
authorities,  certifying  that  a  larger  amount  of  food  or  forage 
had  been  supplied  than  had  really  been  given  in.  Selling 
public  mules  or  horses,  and  returning  them  as  dead,  was 
another  profitable  fraud.  Two  non-combatant  employes 
of  the  army  (a  paymaster  and  a  conductor  of  stores)  were 
“  broken  ”  for  absconding  from  the  army  during  the  battle 
of  Talavera,  and  spreading  false  reports  of  disaster  in  the 
rear. 

The  medical  staff,  not  nearly  such  frequent  offenders 

*  General  Orders,  Santa  Marinha,  March  25,  1811. 

f  The  case  of  an  officer  who  openly  cohabited  with  the  wife  of 
a  private,  and  fought  with  and  thrashed  her  not-unreasonably  jealous 
husband. 

t  See  General  Orders,  July  2,  1813. 


240  Discipline  and  Court-Martials 


as  the  commissariat  staff,  are  occasionally  dismissed  the 
service  for  brawling  and  drunkenness,  which  last  inevitably 
resulted  in  the  neglect  of  the  wounded  on  the  march  or  in 
hospital. 

After  cashiering,  the  next  most  serious  punishment 
inflicted  on  an  officer  was  suspension  from  pay  and  rank  for 
a  term  of  months,  six  and  three  were  the  usual  periods 
named.  This  might  be  inflicted  for  any  one  of  a  great 
variety  of  offences.  By  far  the  most  frequent  fault  was 
neglect  of  details  of  duty,  such  as  quitting  the  regiment  or 
detachment  for  many  hours  without  leave,  allowing  a  convoy 
or  a  draft  to  straggle,  permitting  the  rank  and  file  to  pull 
down  cottages  for  firewood,  or  to  waste  crops,  or  to  fell 
fruit  trees.  Sleeping  away  from  the  company,  in  a  rather 
distant  house  or  village,  was  another  frequent  misdemeanour. 
We  may  place  second  in  the  category  of  offences  the  one 
that  may  be  called  quarrelling  with  native  authorities. 
Owing  to  high-handed  action  on  the  one  side,  and  pro¬ 
vocative  sulkiness  on  the  other,  these  w'rangles  were  very 
common.  Officers  in  charge  of  detachments  fell  out  with 
a  juiz  de  fora  or  a  corregidor,  or  the  governor  of  some  petty 
garrison,  about  billets  or  payments  due,  and  ended  by 
insulting,  occasionally  by  assaulting,  him.  This  generally 
cost  the  offender  six  months’  suspension,  for  Wellington 
was  resolved  that  the  officers  of  his  army  must  not  override 
lawful  local  authority,  and  sometimes,  in  his  comments  on 
a  court-martial  sentence,  asks  what  would  be  thought  of  a 
lieutenant  who  should  treat  in  such  a  fashion  the  mayor 
of  an  English  borough,  or  the  commandant  of  an  English 
fort. 

The  third  list  of  offences  which  were  usually  visited 
with  shorter  or  longer  “  suspension  ”  may  be  put  together 
under  the  general  head  of  relations  of  officers  to  each  other. 
This  includes  equally  oppressive  or  insulting  acts  of  superiors 
to  inferiors,  and  insubordinate  conduct  of  inferiors  to 
superiors.  The  latter  was  far  the  more  common  failing, 
if  the  statistics  of  court-martials  may  be  trusted.  But  no 


Wellington  on  Petty  Quarrels  241 

doubt  allowance  must  be  made  for  many  cases  in  which  a 
bullied  subaltern  preferred  to  hold  his  tongue,  rather  than 
to  appeal  against  the  acts  or  language  of  his  captain  or 
colonel — the  failure  of  his  case  would  leave  him  in  a  very 
dangerous  and  unpleasant  position  for  the  future.  In¬ 
temperate  language,  or  “  improper  ”  letters  from  inferiors 
to  superiors,  are  a  not  uncommon  cause  of  court-martials. 
Even  colonels  occasionally  wrote  or  spoke  in  insubordinate 
terms  to  generals.*  But  “  answering  back  ”  on  the  part 
of  subalterns  to  captains  or  majors  was  of  course  far  more 
frequent.  Wellington  grew,  on  occasion,  exceedingly 
■wrath  at  reading  the  reports  of  court-martials  on  petty 
cases  of  this  kind.  We  may  give  a  typical  comment. 

“  I  cannot  but  consider  the  transaction  which  has  been 
the  subjeot  of  this  court-martial  as  simply  a  private  quarrel, 
it  has  as  little  connection  with  the  public  service  or  the 
discipline  and  subordination  of  the  army,  as  any  that  has 
ever  come  under  my  notice.  It  is  certainly  true  that  the 
private  quarrels  of  officers  may  be  proper  subjects  for  the 
investigation  of  a  court-martial.  But  the  complainant,  in 
order  to  obtain  a  decision  in  his  favour,  must  come  with  a 
fair  case.  He  must  not  himself  have  been  guilty  of  any 
breach  of  the  general  order  of  the  army,  or  of  discipline. 
His  authority  as  a  superior  must  not  have  been  exerted 
over  his  inferior  (of  whom  he  complains)  in  order  to  enjoy 
the  advantage  of  his  own  improper  conduct.  Above  all, 
he  must  have  refrained  from  the  use  of  abusive  or  improper 
language  and  gestures.”  f 

Another  comment  is — 

“  The  Commander  of  the  Forces  cannot  but  feel  that  both 
his  time,  and  that  of  the  officers  composing  court-martials, 

*  There  is  a  long  quarrel  of  this  sort  between  Colonel  Cochrane 
of  the  36th  and  General  A.  Campbell,  whose  original  cause  was  in 
details  of  mismanagement  at  the  escape  of  Brennier  from  Almeida. 

+  General  Orders,  Lesaca,  September  20,  1813.  In  this  case  a 
lieutenant  of  the  5/60th  had  been  condemned  for  violently  resisting 
the  turning  out  of  his  horses  from  a  stable  by  his  senior,  “  using 
opprobrious  and  disgraceful  language  ’’and  threatening  to  strike  him. 

It 


242  Discipline  and  Court-Martials 


is  occupied  very  little  to  the  advantage  of  the  public  service, 
in  considering  the  unbecoming  and  ungentlemanlike  be¬ 
haviour  of  officers  to  each  other.”  * 

The  mildest  form  of  punishment  for  officers  was  the 
reprimand,  which  varied  much  in  shape.  It  might  amount 
to  no  more  than  the  publication  of  the  fact  that  an  officer 
was  reprimanded  in  the  General  Orders,  without  any  further 
publicity.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  the  sentence  of  the  court- 
martial  might  be  directed  to  be  read  out  to  his  regiment, 
or  even  to  his  division,  in  the  most  public  fashion.  And 
to  the  sentence  there  might  be  added  a  caustic  and  scathing 
postscript  by  the  Commander-in-Chief.  Take,  for  example, 
“  This  person  may  think  himself  very  fortunate  that  the 
sentence  of  the  court  has  been  so  lenient.  A  different 
view  of  the  evidence  on  the  charge  would  have  rendered 
his  dismissal  from  the  service  necessary  under  the  Articles 
of  War.  The  Commander  of  the  Forces  hopes  that  he  will 
take  warning  by  what  has  occurred,  and  will  in  future 
conduct  himself  on  all  occasions  as  a  gentleman  should. 
This  reprimand  is  to  be  read  to  him  by  the  commanding 
officer  at  the  station  where  he  may  happen  to  be,  in  presence 
of  the  officers  and  troops,  paraded  for  that  purpose.”  f 

Reprimands  were  generally  the  punishment  for  the 
smaller  derelictions  of  duty,  such  as  failing  to  report  arrival 
at  a  station,  striking  a  soldier  who  was  insolent  instead  of 
arresting  him,  brawling  with  a  civilian  or  a  Portuguese 
militia  officer,  or  boisterous  and  unseemly  conduct  in  the 
streets  when  off  duty. 

There  was  no  court-martial  on  an  officer  for  desertion 
during  the  whole  war,  and  only  one  case  of  the  sort  in  the 
commissioned  ranks.  This  was  that  of  an  Irish  lieutenant 
who  passed  over  to  the  French  outposts  while  Massena’s 
army  was  lying  behind  the  lines  of  Santarem  in  February, 
1811.  He  was  discovered  to  be  insane  or  suffering  from 
delusions,  being  captured  during  Massena’s  retreat,  while 

*  General  Orders,  Garris,  February  24,  1814. 

t  Ibid.,  Freneda,  February  3, 1813. 


Executions  for  Desertion  243 

wandering  in  an  objectless  way  in  the  rear  of  the  enemy’s 
march :  he  was  sent  to  a  mad -house.* 

As  to  the  punishments  of  the  soldier,  the  heaviest  was 
death,  either  by  the  bullets  of  a  firing  party,  or  by  the 
Provost  Marshal’s  gallows.  Shooting  was  almost  exclu¬ 
sively  reserved  for  the  military  offence  of  desertion  to  the 
enemy  ;  but  it  was  two  or  three  times  awarded  for  mutiny 
and  striking  an  officer  or  sergeant,  and  once  only  (as  far  as 
I  can  make  out)  to  a  non-commissioned  officer  for  robbing 
valuable  stores  which  he  had  been  set  to  guard. f  It  would 
have  been  more  usual  to  hang  for  the  latter  offence,  and 
I  do  not  know  why  this  particular  case  was  punished  with 
shooting.  There  seem  to  have  been  78  men  shot  in  all 
during  the  war,  of  whom  52  were  British,  and  26  foreigners. 
The  disproportion,  of  course,  is  enormous,  as  there  were 
some  fifty  or  sixty  British  battalions  in  the  army,  and  only 
ten  foreign  battalions.  J  Among  the  last  the  main  body 
of  deserters  were  supplied  by  two  battalions  only,  the 
Chasseurs  Britanniques  and  Brunswick  Oels  Jagers,  both 
of  which  corps  were  largely  recruited,  as  has  been  already 
explained,  from  Germans,  Italians,  Poles,  and  other  aliens 
from  prison  camps  at  home.  They  had  volunteered  into  the 
British  service  in  order  to  get  the  chance  of  escape,  and  took 
it  at  the  first  opportunity.  The  deserters  from  the  King’s 
German  Legion  were  in  proportion  very  few.  During  the 
last  two  years  of  the  war  many  of  these  foreign  deserters 
were  not  shot,  but  given  fife  service  in  a  colonial  corps, 
in  places  such  as  New  South  Wales,  from  which  they  could 
not  desert  again.  Some  others  got  off  with  a  heavy  sentence 
of  flogging. 

Hanging  was  the  penalty  for  practically  all  capital 
offences  except  desertion  to  the  enemy.  It  was  not  so  fre¬ 
quent  as  shooting.  The  records  of  the  General  Court-Martials 

*  See  Wellington  Dispatches,  vol.  ii.,  pp.  330  and  369,  and  for  Iris 
recapture  Stepney’s  Diary,  p.  56. 

f  Case  of  Corporal  Hammond  of  the  87th,  January  24,  1810. 
t  Viz.  5/60th,  97th,  1,  2,  5,  7  Line  of  the  K.G.L.,  1  and  2  Light 
K.G.L.,  Brunswick  Oels  and  Chasseurs  Britanniques. 


2 it  Discipline  and  Court-Martials 

show  a  total  of  about  forty  executions,  and  a  few  more 
were  apparently  carried  out  by  the  Provost  Marshal  on 
criminals  caught  flagrante  delicto  murdering  or  wounding 
peasants. 

The  punishment  of  hanging  covered  many  offences.  It 
is  rather  surprising  to  find  that  two  men  who  killed  their 
officers  (one  in  the  Buffs,  one  in  the  42nd)  were  hanged 
rather  than  shot — but  apparently  each  case  was  ruled  to 
be  one  of  private  spite,  and  not  of  mutiny,  and  was  treated 
as  simple  murder.  There  were  six  or  eight  instances  of 
men  who  slew  a  comrade  in  the  ranks,  by  deliberate  assassi¬ 
nation,  not  in  a  quarrel,  and  were  hanged  for  it.  It  may 
be  noted,  however,  that  one  private  who  stabbed  an  un¬ 
faithful  wife,  at  the  moment  of  detection,  was  found  guilty 
of  manslaughter  and  given  one  year’s  imprisonment  only. 
Far  the  most  frequent  cause  for  the  use  of  the  gallows, 
however,  was  the  killing  or  wounding  of  peasants  who 
attempted  to  defend  their  houses  or  cattle  from  plunder. 
This  was  a  crime  for  which  Wellington  seldom  if  ever  gave 
pardon ;  he  was  as  inflexible  on  the  point  in  the  hostile  land 
of  France  as  in  the  friendly  Spain  and  Portugal.  It  did 
not  matter  whether  the  peasants  were  killed  or  not — the 
use  of  musket  or  bayonet  against  them  in  pursuit  of  plunder 
was  the  thing  that  mattered.  There  are  certainly  some 
most  atrocious  cases  in  the  list,  where  a  whole  family  had 
been  murdered  or  left  for  dead.  But  in  others,  where  the 
violence  had  been  no  more  than  a  blow  with  a  butt-end,  or 
a  bayonet  prod  in  the  shoulder,  the  offenders  seem  to  have 
been  unlucky  in  not  getting  off  with  a  sound  flogging. 
But  in  Wellington’s  code  petty  stealing  -without  violence 
was  punished  with  the  lash,  but  armed  robbery  with  death. 

In  an  age  when  in  England  theft  to  the  value  of  over 
forty  shillings  was  still  punishable  in  theory  with  death, 
(though  the  penalty  was  more  often  evaded  than  not),  it  is 
not  surprising  to  find  that  some  of  the  cases  of  hanging  in 
Wellington’s  army  were  for  mere  stealing.  But  it  was 
always  for  stealing  on  a  large  scale,  or  under  aggravated 


The  Punishment  of  Hanging 


245 


circumstances.  Mere  petty  larceny  led  to  the  lash  only. 
The  most  notable  achievement  in  this  line  was  that  of 
two  foreigners  who  succeeded  in  breaking  open  the  com¬ 
missary-general’s  chest  and  stole  no  less  than  £2000  from 
it  ;  others  were  those  of  a  soldier-servant  who  absconded 
with  his  master’s  mule,  baggage,  and  purse  ;  of  a  sentry 
over  the  tent  of  a  brigadier,  who  took  the  opportunity  of 
making  off  with  the  general’s  silver  camp-equipage  and 
plate  ;  and  of  a  man  who  being  on  treasure-escort,  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  opening  a  barrel  and  stealing  some  hundreds  of 
dollars  from  it.  In  two  or  three  instances  large  sums  of 
£40  or  £60,  burglariously  stolen  from  the  house  or  tent  of 
an  officer,  a  commissary,  or  a  sutler,  brought  men  to  the 
gallows.  Finally,  there  was  one  case  of  hanging  for  the 
crime  of  sodomy — which  was  still  a  capital  offence  in 
English  law  for  more  than  thirty  years  after  the  Peninsular 
War  ended. 

There  are  one  or  two  instances  on  record  of  rather  sur¬ 
prising  leniency  in  the  sentences  inflicted  by  court-martial 
for  crimes  which  in  most  other  cases  entailed  the  death- 
penalty — e.g.  plundering  and  wounding  a  peasant  was  on 
two  occasions  in  1814  punished  with  900  and  1000  lashes 
only,  and  three  artillerymen,  who  stole  the  watch,  purse, 
and  papers  of  the  Spanish  General  Giron,  got  off  with 
transportation  to  New  South  Wales,  instead  of  suffering 
the  hanging  that  was  usual  for  such  a  serious  offence.  A 
dragoon  convicted  of  rape  in  1814  was  lucky  also  in 
receiving  no  more  than  a  heavy  flogging.  No  doubt  there 
was  in  such  light  sentences  some  consideration  of  previous 
good  conduct  and  steady  service  on  the  part  of  the 
offenders. 

We  have  already  spoken  of  the  penalties  which  came 
next  after  death  in  the  list — the  terrible  1200  and  1000 
lash  awards,  and  of  the  crimes  which  usually  earned  them. 
Much  more  frequent  were  the  700,  500,  and  300  lash  sen¬ 
tences,  which  are  to  be  numbered  by  the  hundred,  and 
were  awarded,  as  a  rule,  for  casual  theft  without  violence, 


246 


Discipline  and  Court-Martials 


making  away  with  necessaries  ( e.g .  selling  blankets  or 
ball-cartridge  to  peasants),  or  “  embargoing  ”  carts  and 
oxen,  i.e.  pressing  transport  from  the  countryside  without 
leave,  to  carry  baggage  or  knapsacks  when  a  small  party, 
without  an  officer  in  charge,  was  on  the  move.  Purloining 
shoes  or  food  from  a  convoy  was  another  frequent  offence, 
worth  about  500  lashes  to  the  detected  culprit.  The  bee¬ 
hive  stealers  of  the  retreat  from  Talavera  got  700  lashes 
each — a  heavy  sentence  for  such  a  crime.  The  tale  con¬ 
cerning  them  is  too  good  to  be  omitted. 

After  the  general  order  against  plundering  from  the 
peasantry  was  issued  at  Jaraicejo  to  the  half-starved  army, 
Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  in  a  cross-country  ride,  saw  a  man 
of  the  Connaught  Rangers  posting  along  as  fast  as  his  legs 
could  carry  him,  with  his  great  coat  wrapped  around  his 
head,  and  a  bee-hive  balanced  upon  it,  with  a  swarm  of 
furious  bees  buzzing  around.  Furious  at  such  a  flagrant 
breach  of  orders  issued  only  on  the  previous  day,  the 
Commander-in-Chief  called  out  to  him,  “  Hullo,  sir,  where 
did  you  get  that  bee-hive  ?  ”  Pat  could  not  see  his  inter¬ 
locutor,  having  completely  shrouded  his  face  to  keep  off 
stings :  he  did  not  pay  sufficient  heed  to  the  tone  of  the 
question,  which  should  have  warned  him,  and  answered 
in  a  fine  Milesian  brogue,  “  Just  over  the  hill  there,  and, 
by  Jasus,  if  ye  don’t  make  haste  they’ll  be  all  gone.”  *  The 
blind  good-nature  of  the  reply  stayed  the  General’s  anger  ; 
he  let  Pat  pass,  and  told  the  story  at  dinner  with  a  laugh. 
But  the  order  was  no  joke  to  the  men  of  the  53rd  caught 
at  the  same  game  a  few  days  after,  f  They  got  the  nick¬ 
name  of  the  “  honeysuckers  ”  along  with  their  flogging. 

There  is  another  tale  of  “  embargoing  ”  belonging  to 
the  regimental  history  of  the  Connaught  Rangers,  which 
may  serve  as  a  pendant  to  that  about  the  bee-hives. 

Early  in  1812  a  commissary  had  pressed  country  carts 

*  The  tale  comes  from  p.  xxxi.  of  the  Introduction  to  the  Collected, 
General  Orders. 

f  General  Orders,  .September  2 3,  1809. 


Charles  Reilly’s  Excuse 


247 


to  go  to  the  Douro,  to  bring  back  pipes  of  wine  for  the 
troops.  On  such  occasions,  with  a  hilly  country  and  very 
tedious  work,  the  men  would  often  contrive,  in  spite  of  the 
vigilance  of  the  subaltern  in  charge  of  the  convoy,  to  let 
the  driver  escape  with  his  bullocks  for  a  pecuniary  con¬ 
sideration.  Other  carts  were  then  illegally  pressed  as 
substitutes.  On  one  of  these  occasions  a  detachment  of 
the  88th  regiment  was  sent  to  St.  Joao  da  Pesqueira  for 
some  wine.  On  their  return,  the  commissary  observed 
that  the  two  fine  white  bullocks,  which  he  had  sent  with 
one  cart,  had  been  exchanged  for  two  very  inferior  blacks. 
He  made  his  regular  complaint,  and  the  two  men  in  charge, 
a  corporal  and  private,  were  brought  to  a  court-martial. 
On  the  trial  everything  was  proved,  save  the  act  of  receiving 
money  from  the  driver  to  allow  the  white  bullocks  to  escape  ; 
and  the  president,  on  summing  up  the  evidence  of  the 
commissary,  said  to  the  prisoners,  “  It  is  quite  useless  deny¬ 
ing  the  fact  ;  it  is  conclusive.  You  started  from  hence 
with  a  pair  of  fine  white  bullocks,  and  you  brought  back 
a  pair  of  lean  blacks.  What  can  you  have  to  say  to  that  ?  ” 
Private  Charles  Reilly,  noways  abashed  at  this,  which  every 
one  thought  a  poser,  and  ready  with  any  excuse  to  save 
himself  from  punishment,  immediately  exclaimed,  “  Och ! 
plaise  your  honour,  and  wasn’t  the  white  beasts  lazy,  and 
didn’t  we  bate  them  until  they  were  black  ?  ”  The  court 
was  not  quite  satisfied  of  the  truth  of  this  wonderful  meta¬ 
morphosis,  and  they  were  condemned  to  be  punished  (see 
General  Order,  Freneda,  January  22,  1812) — the  corporal  to 
be  broke  and  get  700  lashes,  Reilly  to  get  500.  But  in 
consideration  of  the  great  gallantry  displayed  by  the  88th 
at  the  storm  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo  a  few  days  before,  the 
culprits  were  in  the  end  pardoned. 

All  these  cases  quoted  are  from  records  of  general  court- 
martials.  But  of  course  the  huge  majority  of  floggings 
were  inflicted  by  regimental  courts,  which  had  jurisdiction 
over  all  minor  offences,  such  as  drunkenness,  disobedience, 
and  petty  breaches  of  discipline  inside  the  regiment,  but 


248  Discipline  and  Court-Martials 


could  not  give  the  heavier  sentences  such  as  death  or 
transportation,  or  the  1000  lashes. 

A  glance  through  the  records  of  court-martials  shows 
that  some  battalions  gave  much  more  than  their  proper 
percentage  of  criminals,  some  much  less.  Two  main  causes 
governed  the  divergence :  the  first  was  that  some  corps 
got  more  than  their  share  of  bad  recruits — wild  Irish  or 
town  scum  ;  but  I  fancy  that  the  character  of  the  com¬ 
manding  officer  was  even  more  important  than  the  precise 
proportion  of  undesirables  drafted  into  the  ranks.  A 
colonel  who  could  make  himself  loved  as  well  as  feared 
could  reclaim  even  very  unpromising  recruits  :  a  tyrant 
or  an  incapable  could  turn  even  well-disposed  men  into 
bad  soldiers.  It  is  clear  that  an  excessively  easy-going 
and  slack  commanding  officer,  who  winked  at  irregularities, 
and  discouraged  zeal  among  his  officers,  ruined  a  battalion 
as  surely  as  the  most  inhuman  martinet.  Among  the  court- 
martials  of  the  Peninsular  Army  there  are  very  few  on 
colonels — not  half  a  dozen.  But  one  chances  to  be  on  a 
tyrant,  and  the  other  on  a  faineant,  and  the  evidence  seems 
to  show  that  the  latter  got  his  corps  into  quite  as  wretched 
condition  as  the  former.  Though  he  received  over  the 
regiment,  as  every  one  allowed,  in  excellent  order,  in  a  few 
months  of  slack  administration  and  relaxed  discipline,  it 
became  not  only  drunken  and  slovenly,  but  so  slow  on  the 
march,  and  at  the  rendezvous,  that  the  other  units  in  the 
brigade  had  always  to  be  waiting  for  it,  and  the  brigadier 
complained  that  he  could  not  trust  it  at  the  outposts. 
The  officers,  gradually  coming  to  despise  their  colonel, 
treated  him  with  contempt,  and  finally  sent  in  a  round- 
robin  to  the  Horse  Guards,  accusing  him  not  only  of  in¬ 
capacity  but  of  cowardice,  which  last,  in  the  court-martial 
which  followed,  was  held  to  be  an  unfounded  charge.*  The 
colonel,  as  a  result  of  the  investigation,  was  reprimanded, 
and  put  on  half-pay ;  his  subordinates,  for  grave  breach  of 

*  See  the  printed  report  of  the  Long  Court-Martial  on  Colonel 
Quentin,  London,  1814,  p.  272. 


A  Tyrannical  Colonel 


249 


discipline,  were  all  drafted  into  other  regiments,  and  a  new 
body  of  picked  officers  was  brought  together,  to  reorganize 
a  corps  which  was  evidently  in  a  thoroughly  demoralized 
condition ;  the  new-comers  got  the  nickname  of  the 
“  Elegant  Extracts.” 

The  reverse-picture,  of  a  regiment  ruined  by  arbitrary 
strictness  and  inhuman  exaggeration  of  punishments,  may 
be  studied  in  the  records  of  a  court-martial  held  in  the 
spring  of  1813.*  In  this  case  a  commanding  officer  was 
found  guilty  not  only  of  “  violent  conduct  ”  and  “  using 
intemperate  and  improper  language  to  his  officers,  being 
in  breach  of  good  discipline,  and  unbecoming  the  character 
of  an  officer  and  a  gentleman,”  but  of  inflicting  corporal 
punishment  at  large  without  any  form  of  trial,  when  there 
were  sufficient  officers  present  to  form  a  proper  regimental 
court-martial  ;  of  disobeying  the  direction  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  by  piling  up  sentences  of  flogging  passed 
on  men  on  different  occasions,  so  as  to  inflict  several  separate 
punishments  at  the  same  time,  and  of  releasing  men  sen¬ 
tenced  to  punishment  in  order  to  send  them  into  action, 
and  then  returning  them  to  arrest  after  the  battle  in  order 
to  receive  their  lashes.  This  last  was  specially  in  conflict 
with  Wellington’s  orders,  for  he  held  that  good  conduct  in 
action  ought  to  work  out  a  sentence,  pronounced  but  not 
inflicted,  and  that  no  man  convicted  of  a  disgraceful  offence 
ought  to  be  put  into  line  till  he  had  expiated  it  by  under¬ 
going  his  punishment.  This  officer  was  dismissed  the 
service,  but,  in  consideration  of  a  good  fighting  record  in 
the  past,  was  allowed  the  value  of  his  commission  as 
major. 

One  diary  from  the  ranks,  that  of  Donaldson  of  the 
94th,  gives  a  very  interesting  and  complete  picture  of  the 
fate  of  a  battalion  which,  by  the  invaliding  of  its  colonel, 
had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  major  who  had  the  soul  of  a 
tyrant.  This  was  a  case  of  an  old  ranker  who  knew  too 

*  Printed  in  General  Orders,  vol.  v.  1813,  the  accusod  being  Col. 
Arehdall  of  the  l/40th. 


250  Discipline  and  Court-Martials 


much  of  soldiers’  tricks,  and  had  a  sort  of  system  of  espionage 
through  men  who  were  prepared  to  act  as  his  toadies  and 
secret  informers.  “  By  this  eaves-dropping  he  knew  all 
the  little  circumstances  which  another  commanding  officer 
would  have  disdained  to  listen  to,  and  always  made  a  bad 
use  of  his  knowledge.  When  he  got  command  of  the 
regiment  he  introduced  flogging  for  every  trivial  offence, 
and  in  addition  invented  disgraceful  and  torturing  modes 
of  inflicting  the  lash.  But  this  was  not  enough — he  ordered 
that  all  defaulters  should  have  a  patch  of  black  and  yellow 
cloth  sewed  on  to  the  sleeve  of  their  jacket,  and  a  hole  cut 
in  it  for  every  time  they  were  punished.  The  effect  was 
soon  visible  :  as  good  men  were  liable  to  be  punished  for 
the  slightest  fault,  the  barrier  between  them  and  hardened 
ill-doers  was  broken  down,  and  those  who  had  lost  respect 
in  their  own  eyes  became  broken-hearted  and  inefficient 
soldiers,  or  else  grew  reckless  and  launched  out  into  real 
crime.  Those  who  were  hardened  and  unprincipled  before, 
being  brought  by  the  prevalence  of  punishments  nearer  to 
a  level  with  the  better  men,  seemed  to  glory  in  misconduct. 
In  short,  all  idea  of  honour  and  character  was  lost,  and 
listless  apathy  and  bad  conduct  became  the  prevailing 
features  of  the  corps.  Reckless  punishment  changed  the 
individual’s  conduct  in  two  ways — he  either  became  broken¬ 
hearted  and  useless,  or  else  shameless  and  hardened.  .  .  . 
The  real  method  of  accomplishing  the  desired  end  of  keeping 
good  discipline,  is  for  the  officers  to  make  themselves 
acquainted  with  the  personal  character  and  disposition  of 
each  man  under  their  command.  A  commanding  officer 
has  as  good  a  right  to  make  himself  acquainted  with  the 
disposition  of  his  men,  as  the  medical  officer  with  their 
constitutions.”  *  When  the  colonel  came  back  from  sick 
leave  he  was  shocked  to  find  the  men  he  had  been  so  proud 
of  treated  in  this  manner.  His  first  act  was  to  cut  off  the 
yellow  badge ;  his  second  to  do  away  with  the  frequent 
punishments.  But  though  the  regiment  was  again  on  a 
*  Sergeant  Donaldson’s  Eventful  Life  of  a  Soldier,  pp.  145, 146. 


Good-Conduct  Medals  251 

fair  footing,  it  was  long  before  the  effect  of  a  few  months’ 
ill-usage  disappeared. 

What  certain  misguided  officers  tried  to  maintain  by  a 
reign  of  terror,  was  sought  in  other  ways  by  wiser  men. 
It  is  to  the  Peninsular  War  period  that  we  owe  the  first 
of  our  “  Long  Service  and  Good  Conduct  ”  medals — all  at 
first  regimental,  and  not  given  by  the  State.  Honorary 
distinctions  for  the  well-conducted  man  are  both  a  more 
humane  and  a  more  rational  form  of  differentiation  between 
good  and  bad  than  the  black  and  yellow  badge  for  every 
man  punished  for  any  cause,  which  the  detestable  major 
quoted  above  tried  to  introduce.*  In  addition  some 
regiments  instituted  a  division  of  the  men  into  classes,  of 
which  the  best  behaved  had  graduated  privileges  and 
benefits.  Any  man  after  a  certain  period  of  certified  good 
conduct  could  be  moved  up  into  a  higher  class,  and  the 
emulation  not  to  be  left  among  the  recognized  black-sheep 
had  a  very  good  effect. f  But  even  without  “  classes  ”  or 
good-conduct  medals,  the  best  could  be  got  out  of  any 
regiment  by  wise  and  considerate  conduct  on  the  part  of 
the  officers.  There  were  corps  where  the  lash  was  practical^ 
unknown,  J  and  others  where  it  had  only  been  felt  by  a  very 
small  minority  of  hopeless  irreclaimables. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  a  record  or  two  of  punish¬ 
ments  in  a  unit,  inflicted  by  officers  who  do  not  seem  to 
have  been  regarded  by  public  opinion  as  specially  tyrannical 
or  heartless,  which  fills  the  reader  with  astonishment.  I 
have  analysed  the  list  of  men  noted  for  chastisement  in 
one  battery  of  artillery,  where  on  an  effective  of  4  sergeants 
and  136  rank  and  file,  three  of  the  former  had  been  “  broken,” 
and  57  of  the  latter  had  received  punishments  varying 

*  There  are  Peninsular-period  Good-Conduct  medals  for  the 
10th  and  11th  Hussars  (starting  1812),  5th  Foot  (Northumberland 
Fusiliers),  7th  Fusiliers,  22nd,  38th,  52nd,  71st,  74th,  88th,  95th, 
97th,  and  some  other  corps,  not  to  speak  of  others  which  were  medals 
for  special  deeds  of  courage  or  for  marksmanship. 

f  See  Hope’s  Memoirs  of  an  Infantry  Officer,  1808-15,  pp.  459-60. 

j  This  is  said  to  have  been  the  case  in  the  l/48th  when  it  was 
.under  Colonel  Donnellan,  who  fell  at  Xalavera, 


252  Discipline  and  Court-Martials 


downwards  from  500  lashes,  in  the  space  of  twelve  months 
(July,  1812,  to  July,  1813),  over  which  the  record  extends. 
Though  some  of  the  offences  were  serious  enough,  there 
were  others  for  which  the  use  of  the  cat  appears  altogether 
misplaced  and  irrational.  As  an  observer  in  another  corps 
wrote  “  the  frequency  of  flogging  at  one  time  had  the  effect 
of  blinding  the  judgment  of  officers  who  possessed  both 
feeling  and  discrimination.  I  have  known  one  who  shed 
tears  when  his  favourite  horse  was  injured,  and  next  day 
exulted  in  seeing  a  poor  wretch  flogged  whose  offence  was 
being  late  in  delivering  an  order.” 

Floggings  were  inflicted  by  the  drummers  of  the  regiment, 
under  the  superintendence  of  the  drum-major  and  the 
adjutant.  The  culprit  was  bound  by  his  extended  arms 
to  two  of  three  sergeants’  halberds,  planted  in  the  ground  in 
a  triangle,  and  lashed  together  at  the  top.  The  strokes  were 
inflicted  at  the  tap  of  a  drum  beaten  in  slow  time.  Each 
of  the  wielders  of  the  cat  retired  after  having  given  twenty- 
five  lashes.  The  surgeon  was  always  present,  to  certify 
that  the  man’s  life  was  not  in  danger  by  the  further  con¬ 
tinuance  of  the  punishment,  and  the  prisoner  was  taken 
down  the  moment  that  the  medical  man  declared  that  he 
could  stand  no  more.  Often  this  interference  saved  a  culprit 
from  the  end  of  his  punishment,  as  if  the  tale  was  fairly 
complete  he  might  never  be  called  upon  to  undergo  the 
balance.  But  in  grave  cases  the  prisoner  was  merely  sent 
into  hospital  till  he  was  sufficiently  convalescent  to  endure 
the  payment  of  the  remainder  of  his  account.  Inhuman 
commanding  officers  sometimes  refused  to  allow  of  any 
abatement,  even  when  the  crime  had  not  been  a  very 
serious  one,  and  insisted  that  the  whole  sentence  should  be 
executed,  even  if  the  culprit  had  to  go  twice  into  hospital 
before  it  was  completed. 

The  autobiographical  record  of  a  flogging  is  rather 
rare — the  diarist  in  the  ranks  was  generally  a  steady  sort 
of  fellow,  who  did  not  get  into  the  worst  trouble.  The 
following  may  serve  as  an  example,  however.  It  is  that  of 


A  Memory  of  a  Flogging  253 

William  Lawrence  of  the  l/40tk,  who  in  1809  was  a  private, 
though  he  won  his  sergeant’s  stripes  in  1813. 

“  I  absented  myself  without  leave  from  guard  for 
twenty-four  hours,  and  when  I  returned  I  found  I  was  in  a 
tine  scrape,  for  I  was  immediately  put  in  the  guard-room. 
It  was  my  first  offence,  but  that  did  not  screen  me  much, 
and  I  was  sentenced  to  400  lashes.  I  found  the  regiment 
assembled  all  ready  to  witness  my  punishment :  the  place 
chosen  for  it  was  the  square  of  a  convent.  As  soon  as  I 
had  been  brought  up  by  the  guard,  the  sentence  of  the 
court-martial  was  read  over  to  me  by  the  colonel,  and  I  was 
told  to  strip,  which  I  did  firmly,  and  without  using  the 
help  that  was  offered  me,  as  I  had  by  that  time  got  hardened 
to  my  lot.  I  was  then  lashed  to  the  halberds,  and  the 
colonel  gave  the  order  for  the  drummers  to  commence,, 
each  one  having  to  give  me  twenty-five  lashes  in  turn, 
I  bore  it  very  well  until  I  had  received  175,  when  I  got  so 
enraged  with  the  pain  that  I  began  pushing  the  halberds, 
which  did  not  stand  at  all  firm  (being  planted  on  stones), 
right  across  the  square,  amid  the  laughter  of  the  regiment. 
The  colonel,  I  suppose  thinking  then  that  I  had  had  sufficient, 
‘  ordered  the  sulky  rascal  down  ’  in  those  very  words. 
Perhaps  a  more  true  word  could  not  have  been  spoken, 
for  indeed  I  was  sulky.  I  did  not  give  vent  to  a  sound  the 
whole  time,  though  the  blood  ran  down  my  trousers  from 
top  to  bottom.  I  was  unbound,  and  a  corporal  hove  my 
shirt  and  jacket  over  my  shoulder,  and  convoyed  me  to 
hospital,  presenting  as  miserable  a  picture  as  I  possibly 
could. 

“  Perhaps  it  was  as  good  a  thing  for  me  as  could  then 
have  happened,  as  it  prevented  me  from  committing 
greater  crimes,  which  might  at  last  have  brought  me  to 
my  ruin.  But  I  think  a  good  deal  of  that  punishment  might 
have  been  abandoned,  with  more  credit  to  those  who  then 
ruled  the  army.”  *  Yet  to  be  absent  twenty-four  hours  when 
on  guard  was  certainly  a  serious  crime. 

*  Autobiography  oj  Sergeant  William  Lawrence,  pp.  48,  49. 


254  Discipline  and  Court-Martials 

Lawrence  got  off  with  175  lashes  out  of  400  ordered, 
but  was  in  hospital  nearly  three  weeks.  But  300  or  400 
lashes  were  often  inflicted  at  a  time,  and  there  were  men 
who  could  take  them  without  a  groan. 

“  Corporal  punishment  was  going  on  all  the  year  round,” 
writes  a  veteran  officer  of  the  34th,*  “  men  were  flogged  for 
the  small  offences,  and  for  the  graver  ones  often  flogged  to 
death — the  thousand  lashes  were  often  awarded  by  court- 
martial.  I  have  seen  men  suffer  500  and  even  700  before 
being  1  taken  down,’  the  blood  running  down  into  their 
shoes,  and  their  backs  flayed  like  raw  red-chopped  sausages. 
Some  of  them  bore  this  awful  punishment  without  flinching 
for  200  or  300  lashes,  chewing  a  musket  ball  or  a  bit  of 
leather  to  prevent  or  stifle  the  cry  of  agony  :  after  that 
they  did  not  seem  to  feel  the  same  torture.  Sometimes  the 
head  drooped  over  to  one  side,  but  the  lashing  still  went 
on,  the  surgeon  in  attendance  examining  the  patient  from 
time  to  time  to  see  what  more  he  could  bear.  I  did  see, 
with  horror,  one  prisoner  receive  the  700  before  he  was 
taken  down.  This  was  the  sentence  of  a  court-martial, 
carried  into  effect  in  the  presence  of  the  whole  brigade,  for 
an  example,  f  We  certainly  had  very  bad  characters  sent 
■out  to  fill  the  gaps  in  our  ranks,  sweepings  of  prisons  in 
England  and  Ireland  :  but  such  punishments  were  inhuman, 
and  I  made  up  my  mind  that,  if  ever  I  had  the  chance  of 
commanding  a  regiment,  I  would  act  on  another  principle. 
That  time  did  come.  I  did  command  a  gallant  corps  for 
eleven  years,  and  I  abolished  the  lash.” 

But  enough  of  such  horrors.  The  memory  of  them  is 
■a  nightmare. 

*  Rough  Notes,  by  Sir  George  Bell,  i.  p.  120. 

f  Probably  the  case  of  a  private  of  the  34th  who  had  struck  his 
captain,  in  a  rage.  This  flogging  (1813)  was  the  only  one  of  such 
severity  which  occurred  in  the  regiment  while  Bell  was  serving  with 
it  in  1812-1814. 


CHAPTER  XV 


THE  ARMY  ON  THE  MARCH 

It  is  rare  in  Peninsular  literature  to  find  any  general 
descriptions  of  the  normal  working  of  the  military  machine. 
In  personal  diaries  or  reminiscences  the  author  takes  for 
granted  a  knowledge  of  the  daily  life  of  the  army,  which 
was  so  familiar  to  himself,  and  only  makes  remarks  or  notes 
when  something  abnormal  happened.  Official  documents, 
on  the  other  hand,  are  nearly  always  concerned  with  changes 
or  modifications  in  routine.  They  explain  and  comment 
upon  the  reasons  why  some  particular  detail  of  practice 
must  be  abandoned,  or  be  more  strictly  enforced,  but  they 
do  not  give  descriptive  accounts  of  the  whole  system  of 
which  that  detail  is  a  part.  A  notion  as  to  the  methods  on 
which  Wellington’s  army  was  moved  could  be  got  together 
by  the  comparison  of  a  great  many  of  his  “  General  Orders.” 
But,  fortunately,  we  are  spared  much  trouble  in  the  com¬ 
pilation  of  such  a  sketch  by  the  fact  that,  for  once,  it  is 
possible  to  lay  one’s  hand  on  a  careful  detailed  narrative  of 
how  the  army  marched.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  anonymous 
introduction  to  the  second  edition  of  Selected  General 
Orders ,  which  Gurwood  published  in  1837.  It  was 
apparently  not  by  the  editor  himself,  as  he  states  in  his 
introductory  note  that  it  “  was  written,  as  a  critique,  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  author  of  a  distinguished  periodical 
review  ;  but  being  found  too  long  and  too  professional 
for  columns  usually  destined  to  literature  or  politics,  it  was 
not  inserted.”  *  Since  authors  do  not  review  their  own 

*  See  footnote  to  p.  xxv.  of  Selected  General  Orders. 


256 


The  Army  on  the  March 


books,  it  is  clear  that  this  critique  was  written  by  some 
friend,  not  by  Gurwood  himself.  It  extends  to  about 
thirty-seven  pages,  of  which  nine  are  devoted  to  the  long 
and  interesting  sketch  of  Wellington’s  army  on  the  march, 
which  is  reproduced  in  the  following  paragraphs.  The  author, 
writing  for  the  general  public,  not  for  the  professional 
public,  tells  us  precisely  what  we  want  to  know. 

“  The  orders  for  movement  from  the  Commander  of  the 
Forces  were  communicated  by  the  Quarter  Master  General 
to  the  General  Officers  commanding  divisions,  who  detailed 
them,  through  their  Assistant  Quarter  Master  Generals,  to 
the  Generals  of  brigades,  who  gave  them  out  immediately 
to  the  battalions  of  their  brigades,  through  the  Brigade 
Majors.  The  drum,  the  bugle  and  the  trumpet  sounded  the 
preparation  for  the  march  at  a  certain  hour,  generally  one 
hour  and  a  half  before  daylight,  in  order  that  the  several 
battalions  might  be  assembled  on  the  brigade  alarm-posts, 
so  as  to  be  ready  to  march  off  from  the  ground  precisely  at 
daylight.  It  must  be  observed  that  the  alarm-post  is  the 
place  of  assembly  in  the  event  of  alarm  ;  it  was  generally, 
and  should  always  be,  the  place  of  parade. 

“It  is  singular  to  refer  to  these  orders  to  see  how  a 
division  of  6000  men,  and  so  on  in  any  proportion,  rolled 
up  in  their  blankets  ‘  in  the  arms  of  Murphy,’  were  all 
dressed,  with  blankets  rolled,  packed,  equipped,  squadded, 
paraded  in  companies,  told  off  in  subdivisions,  sections, 
and  sections  of  threes,  marched  by  companies  to  the 
regimental  alarm-posts,  and  finally  to  that  of  the  brigade, 
formed  in  close  columns,  all  by  sounds  as  familiar  to  the 
soldier  as  the  clock  at  the  Horse-Guards  to  a  corporal  of  the 
Blues.  Guns  were  paraded,  baggage  packed  and  loaded, 
Commissariat  mules  with  the  reserve  biscuit,  the  Store¬ 
keeper  with  the  spare  ammunition-bullocks  placed  under 
charge,  all  assembled  with  the  same  precision  and  order, 
ready  to  march  off  under  the  direction  of  the  Assistant 
Quarter  Master  General  attached  to  the  division  or  corps, 
who  had  previously  assembled  the  guides,  whom  he  attached 


Starting  the  March 


257 


to  the  column  or  columns  directed  to  be  marched  to  the 
points  or  towns  named  in  the  Quarter  Master  General’s 
instructions.  In  the  mean  time  the  formidable  Provost 
Marshal  attached  to  the  division  made  his  patrols. 

“  The  report  of  ‘  All  Present  ’  being  made  in  succession 
by  the  Brigade  Majors  to  the  Assistant  Adjutant  General, 
and  by  him  to  the  General  commanding  the  column,  the 
word  ‘  By  sections  of  threes,  march,’  was  given,  from  the 
right  or  left,  as  directed  in  the  Quarter  Master  General’s 
instructions,  the  whole  being  formed  either  right  or  left  in 
front,  according  to  the  views  of  the  General  in  command  of 
the  army.  The  advanced  guard  of  the  column  was  then 
formed  under  the  superintendence  of  the  Brigade  Major 
of  the  Brigade,  right  or  left  in  front.  This  advanced  guard 
consisted  of  one  company  of  varying  strength.  The  whole 
was  marched  off  at  sloped  arms,  with  the  greatest  precision 
and  regularity,  and  remained  in  that  order  until  the  word 
‘  March  at  ease  ’  was  given  to  the  leading  battalion,  which 
was  successively  taken  up  by  the  others  in  the  rear.  The 
women,  in  detached  parties,  either  preceded  the  column  or 
followed  it — none  were  permitted  to  accompany  it ;  they 
generally  remained  with  the  baggage,  excepting  when  their 
finances  enabled  them  to  make  little  speculations  in  bread 
and  comfort  in  the  villages  or  towns  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  line  of  march.  The  Assistant  Provost  Marshal  with 
his  guard  and  delinquents  brought  up  the  rear  of  the  column, 
followed  by  the  rear  guard,  under  an  officer  who  took  up 
all  the  stragglers,  whom  he  lodged  in  the  main  guard  on  his 
arrival,  where  those  who  had  received  tickets  of  permission 
to  fall  out  were  directed  to  join  their  corps,  non-com¬ 
missioned  officers  being  in  waiting  to  receive  them. 

“  The  first  halt  was  generally  made  at  the  expiration  of 
half  an  hour  from  the  departure,  and  afterwards  once  an 
hour  ;  each  halt  lasted  at  least  five  minutes  after  the  men 
had  piled  their  arms  ;  this  might  vary  a  little,  as  the 
weather,  distance,  or  other  circumstances  of  the  march 
might  point  out.  The  object  of  halting  was  for  the  purpose 

s 


258 


The  Army  on  the  March 


of  allowing  those  who  had  fallen  out  to  rejoin  their  companies, 
which,  excepting  in  cases  of  sickness,  usually  occurred ; 
as  a  man  wanting  to  fall  out  was  obliged  to  obtain  a  ticket 
from  the  officer  commanding  his  company  so  to  do,  and  to 
leave  his  pack  and  his  firelock  to  be  carried  by  his  comrades 
of  his  section  of  threes  ;  he  therefore  lost  no  time  to  return 
to  his  rank,  and  give  back  his  ticket.  This  first  halt  was 
generally  passed  in  eating  a  piece  of  bread  or  meat  set  aside 
for  the  march — arranging  the  accoutrements,  pack,  haver¬ 
sack,  and  canteen,  so  as  to  sit  well — in  jokes  about  the  last 
night’s  quarters  or  bivouac,  or  in  the  anticipations  of  the 
next.  At  the  expiration  of  the  halt  the  drum  or  bugle 
sounded  the  ‘  Fall-in,’  and,  by  word  of  command,  the 
leading  battalion  proceeded  in  the  same  order  as  in  the 
beginning  of  the  march  ;  the  other  battalions  following  in 
succession,  always  with  music ;  then  ‘  March  at  ease  ’  as 
before  ;  but  when  the  word  ‘  Attention  ’  was  given,  the 
whole  sloped  arms  and  marched  in  the  same  order  as  at  a 
field-day  ;  this  was  always  done  in  formations  previous  to 
the  halt. 

“  When  the  army  was  not  near  the  enemy,  two  officers 
preceded  each  battalion  on  its  march,  one  of  them  twenty - 
four  hours  before  the  battalion,  and,  on  his  arrival  at  the 
station  pointed  out,  received  the  necessary  information 
from  the  Assistant  Quarter  Master  General.  The  other 
officer  marched  the  same  day  in  charge  of  the  camp- 
colour  men  of  each  company,  so  as  to  arrive  early,  and  take 
over  the  quarters  from  the  officer  who  went  on  the  day 
before. 

“  The  Deputy  Assistant  Quarter  Master  General  always 
preceded  these  officers,  to  make  arrangements  with  the 
magistrates  as  to  quarters  :  and  the  town  was  parcelled 
out  by  him,  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  the  several 
battalions  or  corps,  to  their  respective  officers ;  they 
divided  it  according  to  their  judgment  to  the  ten  orderlies, 
who  chalked  on  the  doors  the  letter  of  the  company  and 
number  of  men  to  occupy,  as  also  the  officers’  quarters, 


Distribution  of  Billets 


259 


which  invariably  were  in  the  quarters  of  the  company. 
The  officer  first  marked  off  the  quarters  of  the  Commanding 
Officer,  staff,  orderly-room,  guard-room,  Quarter  Master’s 
stores,  all  in  the  most  central  position  in  the  quarters  of  the 
regiment.  The  first  officer  then  proceeded  to  the  next 
station  ;  the  second  officer  and  the  ten  orderlies  proceeded 
to  the  road  by  which  the  troops  were  to  arrive,  and  accom¬ 
panied  them  to  the  alarm-post  fixed  for  them  :  which  spot 
the  Assistant  Quarter  Master  General,  under  the  direction 
of  the  General  in  command,  had  pointed  out,  either  in  front 
or  in  rear  of  the  town.  Here  they  halted  in  column,  as  also 
assembled  the  following  morning,  or  at  any  other  time  that 
the  alarm  or  assembly  might  be  sounded.  The  brigades, 
the  battalions,  and  the  companies  each  had  their  respective 
alarm-posts  or  places  of  formation  in  the  most  central  parts 
of  their  quarters.  The  officers  commanding  companies 
then  put  their  men  up,  and  made  reports  to  the  Officer 
Commanding  as  to  the  accommodation,  or  the  want  of  it, 
the  officers  commanding  battalions  to  those  commanding 
brigades,  and  the  Generals  of  Brigades  to  the  General  of 
the  Division.  The  Assistant  Quarter  Master  General  was 
always  ready  to  be  appealed  to,  in  case  of  a  battalion  being 
crowded,  to  afford  further  accommodation,  as  there  was 
generally  some  building  or  street  reserved  in  a  central 
position  for  this  purpose,  or  in  the  event  of  detachments 
of  other  corps  arriving. 

“  When  the  column  was  to  bivouac  in  huts,  or,  as  after¬ 
wards,  encamp  in  tents,  there  occurred  less  difficulty.  On 
arrival  on  the  position  pointed  out  in  the  Quarter  Master 
General’s  instructions,  the  General  commanding  chose  what 
he  considered  the  most  favourable  ground  in  accordance 
with  needs  as  to  front,  communications  with  his  flanks  and 
rear,  reference  to  wood  and  water,  and  the  health  of  the 
ground,  avoiding  proximity  to  marshes,  where  the  night 
damps  might  affect  the  troops.  The  Assistant  Quarter 
Master  General  disposed  of  this  ground  to  the  several 
officers  sent  on  in  advance  by  the  battalions  for  that 


260 


The  Army  on  the  March 


purpose,  as  before  described  in  quarters.  The  General  then 
proceeded  to  the  front,  and  indicated  where  he  wished  his 
advanced  piquets  to  be  posted,  to  be  in  communication 
with  the  outposts  of  the  cavalry  in  front,  or,  if  there  were 
none,  to  cover  all  the  approaches  with  detached  posts  and 
sentries,  so  that  nothing  should  be  able  to  arrive  by  any 
of  them  without  being  seen  and  stopped  ;  or  if  patrols  or 
other  movements  of  the  enemy  should  take  place,  either 
by  night  or  day,  that  the  same  might  be  made  known  by 
the  chain  of  sentries  to  the  detached  posts  and  outlying 
piquets,  and  communicated  to  the  main  body,  if  thought 
necessary,  by  the  Field  Officer  of  the  outlying  piquets. 
Preconcerted  signals  of  setting  fire  to  beacons,  or  a  certain 
number  of  musket  shots  fired,  communicated  the  alarm 
more  quickly,  and  allowed  the  troops  more  time  to  get  under 
arms,  until  the  precise  cause  of  the  alarm  was  ascertained. 

“  The  division  having  arrived  on  its  ground,  the  out¬ 
lying  piquets  were  immediately  marched  off  to  take  the 
covering  of  the  front  just  described.  The  temporary 
division-hospital,  and  the  Commissariat  magazines,  being 
pointed  out  to  the  Commanding  Officers,  Surgeons,  and 
Quarter  Masters,  the  brigades  and  battalions  proceeded  to 
their  respective  alarm-posts  and  ground  for  the  encamp¬ 
ment  or  bivouac,  accompanied  by  the  officers  and  the 
camp-colour  men  as  before  stated.  The  quarter  and  rear 
guards  were  then  mounted,  to  be  relieved  always  in  two 
hours  afterwards  by  fresh  troops.  The  sentries  from  the 
quarter  guards  watched  the  communications  to  the  front, 
and  to  the  detached  posts  between  the  camp  and  the  out¬ 
lying  piquets,  to  communicate  alarm  if  announced  in  any 
manner  from  the  front. 

“  If  the  troops  were  to  encamp,  the  tent  mules,  which 
always  immediately  followed  the  column,  under  charge  of 
an  officer,  preceding  all  other  baggage,  were  unloaded,  and 
the  company’s  tents  pitched  in  column  on  the  alignment 
given  to  the  battalion,  brigade,  and  division. 

“  If  there  were  no  tents,  then  the  bill-hooks  came 


Tents  and  Huts 


261 


speedily  into  play  :  regular  squads  were  formed  for  cutting 
branches,  others  for  drawing  them  to  the  lines,  and  others 
as  the  architects  for  constructing  the  huts  :  this  was  an 
amusement  more  than  a  duty,  and  it  was  quite  wonderful 
to  see  how  speedily  every  one  was  under  cover.  It  was  the 
pride  of  each  company  that  their  officers’  huts  should  be 
the  first  and  the  best  built.  The  soldier  became  quite 
re-invigorated  by  the  mere  act  of  piling  arms,  getting  off 
his  accoutrements,  pack,  haversack,  and  other  incum¬ 
brances,  which  weigh  generally  about  sixty  pounds,  and  set 
to  work  in  right  earnest  at  the  hut-building.  Although  the 
huts  were  not  quite  so  speedily  erected,  or  pitched  with  the 
same  regularity,  as  the  tents,  yet  still  the  order  and  align¬ 
ment  were  preserved  when  the  ground  permitted.  This 
might  not  have  been  essential,  yet  still  no  opportunity 
should  be  allowed  to  escape  in  inculcating  the  habit  of 
order  and  regularity  in  whatever  is  done  by  the  soldier ; 
and,  however  simple  the  act,  it  should  be  impressed  on  his 
mind,  that  what  is  ordered  is  the  easiest,  and  that  what  is 
his  duty  is  his  interest. 

“  The  regular  fatigue  parties  for  bread,  meat,  and  spirits 
were  regularly  told  off  and  warned,  before  the  companies 
were  dismissed  to  pitch  tents  or  build  huts.  These  parties 
consisted  generally  of  two  or  three  men  per  company,  under 
a  corporal,  for  each  particular  article  of  provisions,  to  be 
ready  to  turn  out  when  that  article  was  called  at  the 
quarter  guard.  A  company’s  guard  or  watch,  of  a  corporal 
and  four  privates,  furnishing  one  sentry  with  side  arms  only, 
always  remained  in  the  lines  of  the  company  to  repeat 
communications  and  preserve  order. 

“  The  Commanding  Officers  made  their  reports  through 
the  Majors  of  brigade,  that  their  respective  battalions  had 
received  bread,  meat,  spirits,  and  forage,  specifying  the 
number  of  days  for  each  ;  that  they  had  marched  off  one 
or  more  companies,  of  such  and  such  strength,  for  the  out¬ 
lying  piquets,  to  the  posts  directed  under  the  orders  of  the 
Field  Officer  of  the  outlying  piquets  ;  and  that  the  orderlies 


262 


The  Army  on  the  March 


who  had  accompanied  them  had  returned,  knowing  where 
to  find  them.  The  outlying  piquets  were  under  the  Field 
Officer  of  the  day,  who  again  received  his  instructions  from 
the  Assistant  Adjutant  General  of  the  division.  The 
Commanding  Officers  at  the  same  time  reported  the  force 
of  the  company  or  inlying  piquet,  which  were  ready  to  turn 
out  to  support  the  outlying  piquet  in  the  event  of  being 
required,  and  were  under  the  Field  Officer  of  the  day  of  the 
inlying  piquets,  and  kept  on  their  accoutrements,  although 
in  other  respects,  like  the  remaining  companies,  not  on  duty, 
and  in  their  tents  or  huts.  The  company  on  inlying 
piquet,  as  also  the  Field  Officer  of  the  day  in  charge  of  the 
whole  of  the  companies  of  the  brigade,  were  always  first 
for  the  outlying  piquet. 

“  All  particular  duties  were  taken  by  companies,  under 
their  own  officers,  and  not  by  the  old  way  of  individual 
roster  of  so  many  men  per  company  ;  such  were  the  company 
for  outlying  piquet ;  the  company  for  inlying  piquet,  which 
gave  the  quarter  and  rear  guards  within  the  lines  ;  the  first 
company  for  general  fatigue,  from  which  the  Quarter 
Master’s  fatigues  were  taken  for  ammunition,  equipment, 
working  parties,  and  all  other  fatigues,  excepting  rations  ; 
all  these  duties  were  taken  by  the  roster  of  companies. 

“  The  issue  of  rations  was  regulated  by  the  Quarter 
Master  and  Commissariat,  agreeably  to  the  instructions  of 
the  General  commanding  the  division  or  brigade,  com¬ 
municated  in  orders  to  the  battalions,  and  was  done  regi- 
mentally  by  individuals  from  all  the  companies,  and  not 
by  the  company  on  general  fatigue.  On  the  issue  of  any 
article,  such  as  bread,  meat,  wine,  or  forage,  the  fatigue 
parties  from  each  company,  as  before  described,  were 
summoned  from  the  quarter  guard  by  the  Quarter  Master, 
who  called  out  the  watch  in  the  lines  of  each  company ; 
those  previously  warned  for  each  article  turned  out  under 
their  respective  non-commissioned  officers,  and  assembled 
under  the  officer  of  the  inlying  piquet  named  in  the  orders 
at  the  quarter  guard.  He  then  proceeded  with  the  Quarter 


On  Drawing  Rations 


263 


Master  or  Quarter  Master  Sergeant  to  the  place  of  issue  ; 
after  the  delivery  he  returned  to  the  quarter  guard,  reported 
to  the  Captain  of  the  Day,  who  was  the  captain  of  the  in¬ 
lying  piquet,  the  regularity  or  irregularity  of  the  particular 
issue  under  his  superintendence,  and  then  dismissed  the 
parties  under  their  several  non-commissioned  officers  to 
their  respective  companies,  where  the  delivery  was  imme¬ 
diately  made  under  the  orderly  Officer  of  each  company. 
The  same  routine  took  place  when  in  quarters  ;  and, 
although  the  recapitulation  may  appear  tedious,  still  the 
whole  was  performed  with  a  celerity  which  leaves  more 
time  to  the  soldier  when  in  camp  than  in  any  other  situation. 

“At  an  appointed  hour  the  sick  reports  were  gathered 
from  the  companies,  and  the  men  paraded  for  the  inspection 
of  the  Surgeon  ;  he  reported  to  the  Staff  Surgeon,  who,  in 
his  turn,  reported  to  the  General  commanding  the  division, 
sending  his  own  report  to  the  Inspector  General  of  Hospitals. 

“  The  General  commanding  the  division  made  his 
reports  to  the  Adjutant  and  Quarter  Master  Generals  for 
the  information  of  the  Commander  of  the  Forces,  according 
to  the  importance  of  the  report  and  the  circumstances  of 
the  moment. 

“  When  before  the  enemy,  the  issue  of  the  provisions 
and  the  cooking  were  attended  to  with  every  consideration 
to  the  position  of  things,  so  that  what  was  to  be  done 
should  be  done  with  speed  as  well  as  precaution  ;  for  it 
would  be  bad  management  to  throw  away  the  soup  before 
it  was  well  made,  or  swallow  it  boiling  hot,  in  case  of 
interruption,  and  still  worse  to  leave  it  to  the  enemy.  All 
this  is  sufficiently  dwelt  upon  in  the  Duke’s  ‘  Circular 
Letter,’  and  in  the  admirable  orders  of  General  Robert 
Craufurd,  from  whence  the  greater  part  of  the  foregoing 
details  were  learned  and  proved  in  the  field.* 

“  The  new  tin  camp-kettle,  carried  alternately  by  the 

*  These  can  be  found  in  Fitzclarence  on  Outpost  Duty,  mentioned 
above,  in  which  they  were  printed  at  full  length.  It  is  still  easy  to 
procure. 


264 


The  Army  on  the  March 


men  of  each  squad,  was  a  great  improvement  upon  the  old 
Flanders  iron  cauldron,  which  required  a  whole  tree,  or  the 
half  of  a  church  door,  to  make  it  boil ;  and  which,  being 
carried  on  the  camp-kettle  mule  (afterwards  appropriated 
to  carry  the  tents),  only  arrived  with  the  baggage.  This 
improvement,  as  the  Duke  truly  observed  in  his  ‘  October 
Minute,’  left  much  valuable  time  disposable  for  other 
purposes.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  in  any  future  wars  some 
improvement  will  also  take  place  in  the  weight  and  temper 
of  the  old  bill-hook,  which,  in  the  early  part  of  the 
Peninsular  War,  was  immoderately  heavy,  and  had  edges 
which,  on  attempting  to  cut  any  wood  not  absolutely  green, 
bent  like  lead  :  many  of  the  men  threw  these  away,  but  the 
more  prudent  exchanged  them  for  the  lighter  and  better 
tempered  bill-hook  used  by  the  Portuguese  in  their  vine¬ 
yards,  exchange  being  no  robbery  with  our  fellows. 

“  In  the  camp  or  bivouac,  in  fine  weather,  all  went  on 
merrily,  but  there  came  moments  of  which  the  mere 
remembrance  even  now  recalls  ancient  twitches  of  rheu¬ 
matism,  which  the  iron  frame  of  the  most  hardy  could  not 
always  resist.  On  the  night  previous  to  General  Craufurd’s 
affair  on  the  Coa,  on  those  previous  to  the  battle  of  Sala¬ 
manca  and  the  battle  of  Waterloo,  and  on  many  other  less 
anxious  nights,  not  hallowed  by  such  recollections,  deluges 
of  rain  not  only  drenched  the  earth,  but  unfortunately  all 
that  rested  or  tried  to  rest  upon  itj)  the  draining  through 
the  hut  from  above  by  some  ill-placed  sticks  in  the  roof, 
like  lightning  conductors,  conveyed  the  subtle  fluid  where 
it  was  the  least  wanted  ;  while  the  floods  coursing  under, 
drove  away  all  possibility  of  sleep  :  repose  was,  of  course, 
out  of  the  question,  when  even  the  worms  would  come  out 
of  the  earth,  it  being  far  too  wet  for  them.  ‘  In  such  a  night 
as  this  ’  it  was  weary  work  to  await  the  lagging  dawn  with 
a  craving  stomach  ;  and,  worse  still,  to  find  nothing  but  a 
bellyful  of  bullets  for  breakfast.  But,  on  the  Pyrenees,  in 
the  more  fortunate  and  healthy  days  of  tents,  it  was  not 
unusual,  when  the  mountain  blast  and  torrents  of  rain 


The  Miseries  of  Wet  Weather  265 


drew  up  the  pegs  of  the  tents,  for  them  to  fall,  as  nothing 
in  nature  falls,  squash  on  the  soldier,  who  lay  enveloped 
and  floundering  in  the  horrible  wet  folds  of  canvas.  Then 
nothing  but  the  passing  joke  ‘  Boat  a-hoy  !  ’  or  the  roars  of 
laughter  caused  by  some  wag,  who  made  this  acme  of  misery 
into  mirth,  could  re-animate  to  the  exertion  of  scrambling 
out  of  these  clammy  winding-sheets.  These  are  recollec¬ 
tions,  however,  which,  notwithstanding  the  sufferings  in 
the  experience  of  them,  and  their  legacies  of  rheumatism, 
still  afford  pleasurable  feelings  to  the  old  soldier,  now  laid 
up  by  his  Christmas  fireside.” 

To  this  long  and  lively  description  by  an  anonymous 
Peninsular  veteran  (probably  from  the  Light  Division)  of 
the  way  in  which  Wellington’s  army  moved,  we  need  only 
add  a  few  words  by  way  of  caution  and  supplement.  The 
smoothly-working  regularity  which  it  described  could  not 
always  be  secured  in  actual  practice.  There  were  marches 
where  the  system  could  not  be  carried  out,  by  reason  of 
hurry,  unexpected  changes  of  direction,  and  the  vagaries 
of  the  weather.  When  some  sudden  movement  of  the 
French  forced  the  Duke  to  throw  his  army  on  a  route  that 
he  had  not  intended  to  take,  the  elaborate  provision  of 
officers  going  before  to  act  as  harbingers  could  not  be 
carried  out.  When  a  division  halted,  late  at  night,  at  some 
unforeseen  destination,  there  could  be  neither  the  selection 
of  billets,  nor  (in  the  open  field)  the  erection  of  huts  described 
above.  All  had  to  be  done  more  or  less  haphazard  in  the 
dark.  In  hot  or  stormy  weather  stragglers  were  numerous, 
and  the  “  ticket  ”  routine  broke  down  altogether.  The 
description  above  will  do  for  long  orderly  movements  like 
the  advance  on  Madrid  in  1812,  or  the  march  to  Vittoria, 
in  1813,  but  it  fails  to  reproduce  the  impression  of  confusion 
and  misery  caused  by  the  perusal  of  any  good  narrative 
of  the  Burgos  retreat,  or  of  the  disorder  in  the  hasty  marches 
to  intercept  Soult  on  the  eve  of  the  battles  of  the  Pyrenees. 
A  quotation  from  a  diarist  in  the  ranks,*  giving  a  picture 
*  Donaldson  of  the  94th,  pp.  179-181. 


266  The  Army  on  the  March 

of  the  fii’st-named  march  may  suffice  to  give  the  reverse  of 
the  shield. 

“  Retreating  before  the  enemy  at  any  time  is  a  grievous 
business,  but  in  such  weather  as  that  of  November,  1812, 
it  was  doubly  so.  The  rain  pouring  down  in  torrents 
drenched  us  to  the  skin,  the  road,  composed  of  clay  soil, 
stuck  to  our  shoes  so  fast  that  they  were  torn  off  our  feet. 
The  nights  were  dismally  dark,  the  cold  winds  blew  in 
heavy  gusts,  and  the  roads  became  gradually  worse.  After 
marching  in  this  state  for  hours,  we  halted  in  a  field  by  the 
roadside,  piled  our  arms,  and  were  allowed  to  dispose  of 
ourselves  as  we  best  could.  The  moon,  wading  through 
dense  masses  of  clouds,  sometimes  threw  a  momentary 
gleam  on  the  miserable  beings  huddled  together  in  every 
variety  of  posture,  and  trying  to  rest  or  to  screen  themselves 
from  the  cold.  Some  were  lying  on  the  wet  ground  rolled 
in  wetter  blankets,  some  placed  their  knapsack  on  a  stone, 
and  sat  on  it,  with  their  blankets  wrapped  about  them, 
their  heads  resting  on  their  knees,  their  teeth  chattering 
with  cold.  Long  before  daylight  we  were  again  ordered  to 
fall  in,  and  proceeded  on  our  retreat.  The  rain  still  con¬ 
tinued  to  fall,  the  roads  were  now  knee-deep  in  mud. 
Many  men  got  fatigued  and  could  not  follow  :  the  spring 
waggons  could  not  hold  them  all ;  they  dropped  behind  to 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  French  cavalry.  By  some  mis¬ 
management  the  commissary  stores  had  been  sent  on  ahead 
with  the  baggage,  toward  Rodrigo,  and  we  were  without 
food.  The  feeling  of  hunger  was  very  severe  :  some  oxen 
that  had  remained  with  the  division  were  killed  and  served 
out  to  us,  but  our  attempts  to  kindle  cooking  fires  with  wet 
wood  were  abortive.  Sometimes  we  just  managed  to  raise 
a  smoke,  and  numbers  would  gather  round  a  fire,  which 
then  would  go  out,  in  spite  of  their  efforts. 

“  A  savage  sort  of  desperation  took  possession  of  our 
minds  :  those  who  lived  on  most  friendly  terms  with  each 
other  in  better  times  now  quarrelled  with  each  other,  using 
the  most  frightful  imprecations  on  the  slightest  offence. 


The  Retreat  from  Burgos 


267 


A  misanthropic  spirit  took  possession  of  every  breast.  The 
streams  from  the  hills  were  swollen  into  rivers,  which  we 
had  to  wade,  and  vast  numbers  fell  out,  among  them  even 
officers.  It  was  piteous  to  see  the  men,  who  had  long 
dragged  their  limbs  after  them  with  a  determined  spirit, 
finally  fall  down  in  the  mud  unable  to  proceed  further. 
The  despairing  looks  that  they  gave  us,  when  they  saw  us 
pass  on,  would  have  pierced  the  heart  at  any  other  time  ; 
but  our  feelings  were  steeled,  and  we  had  no  power  to 
assist,  even  had  we  felt  the  inclination. 

“  At  last  the  rain  somewhat  abated,  but  the  cold  was 
excessive :  at  the  nightly  halt  many  men  threw  themselves 
down  in  the  mud,  praying  for  death  to  relieve  them  from 
their  misery.  And  some  prayed  not  in  vain,  for  next 
morning,  starting  in  the  dark,  we  stumbled  over  several 
who  had  died  in  the  night.  Setting  my  foot  inadvertently 
on  one,  I  stooped  down  to  feel,  and  I  shall  never  forget  the 
sickening  thrill  that  went  to  my  heart,  as  my  hand  touched 
his  cold,  clammy  face.  This  day  we  halted  earlier  than 
usual,  and  the  weather  being  clearer,  got  fires  lighted  ;  but 
there  was  nothing  to  eat  save  acorns  from  a  wood  in  which 
we  encamped — we  greedily  devoured  them,  though  they 
were  nauseous  in  the  extreme.  Next  day’s  sufferings  were 
of  the  same  nature — only  more  aggravated,  till  at  last  we 
neared  Rodrigo  in  the  dark,  halted,  and  heard  at  last  the 
well-known  summons  of  ‘  Turn  out  for  biscuit,’  ring  in 
our  ears.  We  had  got  to  food  at  last*  Instead  of  the 
usual  orderly  division  each  man  seized  what  he  could  get, 
and  began  to  allay  the  dreadful  gnawing  pain  which  had 
tormented  us  for  four  days  of  unexampled  cold  and  fatigue. 


CHAPTER  XVI 


IMPEDIMENTA  :  THE  BAGGAGE — LADIES  AT  THE  FRONT 

The  train  of  Wellington’s  army  was  very  heavy.  In 
addition  to  the  long  droves  of  mules  and  ox-waggons  which 
carried  public  stores,  there  was  a  very  large  accumulation 
of  private  baggage.  The  field  equipment  of  officers — 
especially  of  officers  of  the  higher  ranks — strikes  the  modern 
student  as  very  heavy,  and  was  much  commented  on  by 
French  observers  at  the  time.  “  To  look  at  the  mass  of 
impedimenta  and  camp-followers  trailing  behind  the 
British,”  says  Foy,  “  you  would  think  you  were  beholding 
the  army  of  Darius.  Only  when  you  have  met  them  in 
the  field  do  you  realize  that  you  have  to  do  with  the  soldiers 
of  Alexander.”  The  cause  of  this  accumulation  was  partly 
a  survival  of  the  lax  customs  of  the  eighteenth  century,  but 
it  resulted  still  more  from  the  character  of  the  country 
over  which  Wellington’s  host  moved.  In  the  interior  of 
Spain  or  Portugal  absolutely  nothing  was  to  be  procured. 
The  simplest  small  luxuries,  tea,  sugar,  coffee,  were  un- 
gettable,  save  in  the  largest  towns  ;  to  renew  clothing  was 
equally  impossible.  He  who  required  anything  must  carry 
it  with  him.  It  was  not  like  campaigning  in  France, 
Belgium,  Germany,  or  Italy.  At  the  commencement  of 
his  term  of  command  Wellington  laid  down  the  rule  *  that 
no  private  baggage  was  to  be  carried  upon  carts  :  “  those 
who  have  baggage  to  carry,  must  be  provided  with  mules 
and  horses.”  This  order  is  repeated  again  and  again  during 
later  years. |  A  regular  scale  of  the  amount  of  horses  and 

*  General  Order,  May  23,  1809. 

f  See  reproofs  in  1811  and  1812  in  Collected  General  Orders,  p.  20. 


The  Baggage  Animals 


269 


mules  allowed  to  officers  of  different  rank  was  shortly 
produced.  Two  subalterns  must  share  one  sumpter-beast 
between  them,  a  captain  was  allowed  a  whole  mule  or  horse, 
and  so  on,  in  a  mounting  scale.*  But  as  early  as  September 
1,  1809,  it  would  seem  that  a  more  liberal  allowance  was 
made  legal.  In  a  “  general  order  ”  of  that  day  we  get  an 
elaborate  table  of  rations  of  forage  for  all  ranks,  from  the 
commander-in-chief  downwards.  While  subalterns  are 
allowed  one  ration  each,  the  number  rises  enormously  for 
the  seniors,  a  captain  commanding  a  company  is  set  down 
for  five  rations,  a  major  for  seven,  a  lieutenant-colonel  in 
charge  of  a  battalion  for  ten,  the  Adjutant-General  for 
twenty,  etc.,  etc.  This  was  a  far  too  liberal  allowance  for 
the  senior  ranks,  and  led  to  an  accumulation  of  beasts, 
both  riding  horses  and  pack-mules,  far  surpassing  what  was 
reasonable.  To  enable  them  to  equip  themselves  for  field 
service,  all  officers  (whether  staff  or  regimental)  when 
ordered  for  the  first  time  to  join  the  army,  were  allowed 
to  draw  200  days  “  bat,  baggage,  and  forage  money.”  This 
presumably  would  go  towards  the  purchase  of  their  animals. 
The  forage  allowed  was  14  lbs.  of  hay  or  straw  of  the 
country,  and  12  lbs.  of  oats,  or  10  lbs.  of  barley  or  Indian 
corn.  When  English  hay  was  procurable  (as  at  Lisbon) 
only  10  lbs.  of  it  might  be  issued  instead  of  the  14  lbs.  of 
native  stuff.  On  this  system  the  captain  would  provide 
himself  with  a  riding  horse,  generally  a  small  Portuguese 
nag,  and  have  a  mule  for  his  baggage.  The  subaltern 
must  walk  if  he  kept  a  mule  :  but  it  seems  that  very  soon 
the  juniors  also  took  to  riding.  At  any  rate,  lieutenants 
and  other  juniors  often  appear  with  a  riding  horse.  Nothing 
is  more  common  in  a  diary  than  to  find,  on  his  first  arrival 
in  Portugal  the  young  officer  procuring  himself  not  one  but 

*  “  Under  the  orders  of  Sir  John  Moore  a  horse  or  mule  was 
allowed  to  each  captain  of  a  company  of  infantry,  and  a  horse  or 
mule  in  common  among  the  subalterns.  And  under  the  orders  of  Sir 
John  Cradock,  which  have  been  the  rule  for  this  army,  the 
subalterns  were  allowed  a  horse  or  mule  between  them  ”  ( General 
Orders,  p.  122). 


270 


The  Impedimenta 


two  beasts,  generally  a  nag  and  a  mule.  Sometimes  he 
brought  out  a  horse  of  his  own  from  England.*  More 
usually  he  bought — 

“  A  mule  for  baggage,  and  a  ‘  bit  of  blood  ’  ”  j 

in  the  horse-market  at  Lisbon,  of  which  one  who  had  been 
through  the  business  writes  : — 

“  The  only  convenient  opportunity  to  make  the  purchase 
■was  at  a  sort  of  fair  held  every  Tuesday  in  the  lower  part 
of  the  town.  There  horses,  mules,  and  asses  were  bought 
and  sold,  and  (as  in  all  markets)  the  price  chiefly  depended 
on  the  demand.  The  Portuguese  horse-dealer  has  all  the 
avidity  of  the  English  jockey  to  pick  your  pocket,  but  is 
not  so  au  fait  at  the  business.  At  this  Fair  you  buy  or  sell 
your  animal,  the  bargain  is  struck,  the  money  paid,  and 
the  contract  is  indissoluble.  English  guineas  had  no  attrac¬ 
tion  :  the  dollar  or  the  moidore  was  the  medium  ;  but 
since  the  guinea  has  been  introduced  in  the  payment  of 
the  army  (1813)  the  Portuguese  begin  to  appreciate  its 
value.  It  was  customary  for  officers  who  wanted  cash  to 
give  their  draft  on  some  house  in  London  ;  but  it  was 
purchasing  money  very  dearly,  giving  at  the  rate  of  six 
and  sixpence  for  a  dollar  that  would  only  bring  five  shillings, 
so  losing  eighteen  pence  on  every  crown.”  % 

Good  and  large  Spanish  mules  cost  as  much,  or  almost 
as  much,  as  the  small  horses  of  the  country.  Fifty  to 
ninety  dollars  was  an  ordinary  price.  Thirty  to  forty-five 

*  I  find,  e.g.,  in  diaries,  that  2nd  Lieut.  Hough,  R.A.,  got  “two 
domestics,  a  country  horse,  and  a  mule  ”  immediately  on  landing. 
Geo.  Simmons  and  Harry  Smith  of  the  95th  were  certainly 
habitually  riding  when  only  lieutenants.  So  was  Grattan  of  the 
88th.  Bell  of  the  34th  being  impecunious  had  “  only  half  a  burro 
along  with  another  lad.”  Bunbury  of  the  Buffs  had  half  a  horse  and 
half  a  mule  in  conjunction  with  another  subaltern.  Hay  of  the 
52nd  was  just  in  the  regulation  with  one  mule  to  himself,  on  his 
first  campaign,  but  bought  a  Portuguese  mare  before  he  had  been 
a  year  in  the  field. 

t  From  that  amusing  piece  of  doggerel  (strictly  contemporary 
The  Military  Adventures  of  Johnny  Newcome. 

X  Notes  to  Johnny  Newcome,  p.  30. 


Concerning  Messes 


271 


pounds  was  considered  cheap  for  an  English  riding  horse.  * 
A  Portuguese  nag  might  be  bought  for  fifteen  or  twenty. 

“  In  consequence  of  the  difficulty  of  transporting 
baggage,”  writes  one  of  the  liveliest  commentators  on  daily 
life  at  the  front,  “  a  regiment  on  active  service  could  not 
keep  up  a  regular  mess,  as  in  England.  Each  officer  was 
obliged  to  manage  for  himself  :  they  generally  divided 
themselves  into  mess-parties  by  twos  and  threes.  This 
greatly  incommoded  the  subaltern  :  allowed  only  the 
carriage  of  half  an  animal  [or  at  the  most  of  one]  it  was  not 
possible  to  admit,  for  the  purpose  of  having  extra  eatables, 
any  addition  to  his  share  of  baggage.  The  mere  ration 
was  all  that  he  got,  with  a  camp-kettle  for  culinary  pur¬ 
poses.  Besides  we  must  recollect  the  difficulty  of  getting 
extra  food,  and  also  the  want  of  money.  So  the  bit  of  beef 
and  the  ration  of  biscuit  was  frequent  fare  for  perhaps 
two-thirds  of  the  officers — with  the  allowance  of  ration-rum 
or  wine  (generally  execrable  stuff).  The  prime  luxuries 
were  a  drop  of  brandy  and  a  segar.  With  respect  to  articles 
of  dress,  the  contents  of  a  small  portmanteau  being  all  that 
could  be  taken  about,  if  a  subaltern  wore  out  or  lost  his 
regimental  jacket,  he  had  to  improvise  a  substitute,  e.g.  his 
great  coat.  Waistcoats  were  as  fancy  directed,  black,  blue, 
or  green,  silk  or  velvet.” 

Nevertheless,  though  the  officer,  or  at  least  the  junior 
officer,  thought  himself  much  stinted  in  baggage,  the  private 
mules  of  the  regiment,  and  in  particular  those  of  the  senior 
officers,  made  up  quite  a  drove — at  least  some  thirty  or 
forty.  In  addition  there  were  the  public  mules  of  the  corps, 
some  thirteen  in  number — one  for  each  company’s  camp 
kettles,  one  for  entrenching  tools,  one  for  the  paymaster’s 
books,  one  for  the  surgeon’s  medical  paniers.  If  we  add 
to  these  the  private  riding  horses  of  the  senior  officers  and 

*  Grattan  of  the  88th,  selling  his  horse  on  leaving  the  Peninsula 
at  the  Lisbon  Horse-Fair,  says  that  he  got  125  dollars  for  it, 
equalling  at  the  then  rate  of  exchange  £31  5s.  Boothby,  R.E., 
buying  a  red  English  stallion,  considers  himself  very  lucky  to  get  it 
for  30  guineas.  A  donkey  fetched  about  15  dollars  only. 


272 


The  Impedimenta 


such  of  the  juniors  as  could  afford  them,  there  was  quite 
a  cavalcade — enough  to  block  a  road  or  to  encumber  a 
ford.  And  unfortunately  the  mules  and  horses  presupposed 
drivers  and  attendants.  Wellington  set  his  face  against 
the  withdrawal  from  the  ranks  of  soldier-servants  to  act  as 
muleteers.*  Each  officer,  of  course,  had  one  ;  but  they 
were  supposed  to  be  available  for  service,  and  could  only 
look  to  their  master’s  business  in  the  halts  and  encamp¬ 
ments.  Hence  native  servants  had  to  be  hired — even 
the  poorest  pair  of  ensigns  wanted  a  Portuguese  boy  to 
look  after  their  single  mule.  The  colonel  had  probably 
three  or  four  followers.  Thus  to  take  charge  of  its  baggage, 
private  and  public,  each  battalion  had  a  following  of  twenty 
or  thirty  such  attendants,  a  few  English,  the  large  majority 
Spanish  or  Portuguese. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  these  fellows  had  a  villainous 
reputation,  and  largely  deserved  it.  Though  many  decent 
peasant  lads  were  picked  up  in  the  countryside  by  the 
earlier  comers,  and  made  trustworthy  and  loyal  servants, 
the  majority  were  not  satisfactory.  The  sort  of  followers 
whom  the  officers  of  a  newly-landed  regiment  engaged  at 
short  notice  upon  the  quays  of  Lisbon,  when  only  two 
or  three  days  were  given  them  for  selection,  were  mostly 
“  undesirables.”  If  there  were  a  few  among  them  who 
were  merely  “  broken  men,” — ruined  peasants  seeking  bread 
at  any  hand  that  would  give  it, — the  majority  were  the 
scum  of  a  great  harbour  city,  ruffians  of  the  lowest  sort. 
The  best  of  the  Portuguese  were  with  the  army :  the  net  of 
the  conscription  was  making  wide  sweeps,  and  few  young 
men  of  the  decent  class  escaped  the  line  or  the  militia. 
Personal  service  under  an  English  officer,  who  was  certainly 
an  incomprehensible  foreigner,  and  might  well  be  a  hard  and 
unreasonable  master,  was  not  so  attractive  as  to  draw  the 
pick  of  the  Portuguese  working  classes.  It  did,  on  the 
other  hand,  appeal  to  needy  rascals  who  wanted  the  chance 

*  There  are  several  court-martials  on  officers  who  (disregarding 
this  order)  kept  a  soldier-servant  or  batman  out  of  the  ranks. 


The  Camp  Followers 


273 


of  cheating  an  employer  who  knew  nothing  of  the  country, 
its  customs,  and  its  prices.  There  was  splendid  opportunity 
for  embezzlement.  Moreover,  many  looked  for  more 
lucrative,  if  more  dangerous  gains.  The  diaries  show  that 
a  very  considerable  proportion  of  the  hastily-hired  muleteers 
and  servants  absconded,  after  a  few  days,  with  their  master’s 
mule  and  portmanteau,  and  were  never  seen  again.  Those 
who  did  not,  were  looking  after  the  plunder  of  the  battle¬ 
field,  the  camp,  and  the  wayside.  It  was  they  who  robbed 
drunken  soldiers,  ill-guarded  commissary  stores,  or  lonely 
villages.  They  slunk  out  at  night  to  make  privy  plunder 
in  the  lines  of  the  regiments  in  which  they  were  not  em¬ 
ployed.  On  the  battlefield  they  were  ruthless  strippers  of 
the  wounded — English  and  Portuguese  no  less  than  French 
— as  well  as  of  the  dead.  Unless  report  much  mistreats 
them,  they  habitually  knocked  a  wounded  Frenchman  on 
the  head,  if  they  were  out  of  sight  of  the  red-coats.*  Con¬ 
sidering  the  atrocities  of  which  the  French  had  been  guilty 
in  Portugal,  this  might  pass  for  not  unnatural  retaliation  ; 
but  it  is  certain  that  the  British  wounded  were  also  fre¬ 
quently  plundered,  and  there  is  more  than  a  suspicion 
that  they  were  sometimes  murdered.  The  Spanish  camp- 
followers  passed  as  being  even  more  blood-thirsty  than 
the  Portuguese.  Of  course  it  was  not  the  officers’  private 
employes  alone  who  were  guilty  of  these  misdemeanours  ; 
the  public  muleteers  of  the  commissariat  staff,  and  other 
hangers-on  of  the  army,  had  an  equally  bad  reputation. 
The  most  daring  theft  of  the  whole  war,  as  has  been  already 
mentioned,  was  done  by  two  “  authorized  followers,”  who 

*  Olio  officor  relates  that  he  came  upon  his  own  mule-boy, 
aged  ten  or  twelve,  deliberately  beating  out  the  brains  of  a  wounded 
Frenchman,  at  Salamanca,  with  a  large  stone.  Another  diarist 
speaks  of  making  a  wounded  Frenchman  comfortable  while  he 
went  for  a  surgeon,  and  returning  to  find  him  stabbed  and  stripped. 
A  third  (F.  Monro,  R.A.)  says,  “  I  found  myself  among  the  dead 
and  dying,  to  the  shame  of  human  nature  be  it  said,  both  stripped, 
some  half-naked,  some  wholly  so,  and  this  done  principally  by 
those  infernal  devils  in  mortal  shape,  the  cruel,  cowardly  Portuguese 
followers,  unfeeling  ruffians.  The  Portuguese  pillaged  and  plundered 
our  own  wounded  ojjicers  before  they  were  dead  !  ” 

T 


274 


The  Impedimenta 


burglariously  entered  the  house  of  the  Commissary  General 
in  1814,  and  got  off  with  no  less  than  £2000  in  gold.  They 
were  detected,  and  naturally  suffered  the  extreme  punish¬ 
ment  of  the  law.  By  their  names  one  would  seem  to  have 
been  French,  the  other  a  Spaniard.  There  is  an  awful 
story,  told  in  two  diaries,  of  a  camp  follower  who  in  a 
time  of  starvation  sold  to  British  soldiers  as  pork  slices 
cut  off  a  French  corpse.*  He  got  away  before  he  could 
be  caught  and  shot.  But  enough  of  these  ghouls  ! 

The  followers  of  a  British  army  were  by  no  means 
exclusively  foreign.  One  of  the  worst  impediments  to  the 
free  movement  of  the  host  came  from  the  unhappy  practice 
that  then  prevailed  of  allowing  corps  on  foreign  service 
to  take  with  them  a  proportion  of  soldiers’  wives — four  or 
six  per  company.  Forty  or  sixty  of  these  women,  mostly 
mounted  on  donkeys,  formed  the  most  unmanageable 
portion  of  every  regimental  train.  They  were  always 
straggling  or  being  left  behind,  because  they  could  not 
keep  up  with  the  long  marches  that  the  army  had  often 
to  take.  Wayside  tragedies  of  this  sort  are  to  be  found 
recorded  in  almost  every  Peninsular  memoir — often  of  the 
most  harrowing  sort.  In  especial  we  may  mention  the 
number  of  these  poor  women  who  dropped  in  the  Corunna 
retreat,  and  died  in  the  snow,  or  fell  into  the  hands  of  the 
French.  The  interesting  little  book  of  a  married  sergeant 
of  the  42nd,  who  took  his  wife  about  with  him  during  the 
last  three  years  of  the  war,  is  full  of  curious  little 
shifts  and  anxieties  that  they  went  through. f  The  best 
description  of  this  curious  stratum  of  the  Peninsular 
Army  that  I  know  is  in  the  autobiography  of  Bell  of 
the  34th  4 

“  The  multitude  of  soldiers’  wives  stuck  to  the  army  like 
bricks  :  averse  to  all  military  discipline,  they  impeded  our 
progress  at  times  very  much,  particularly  in  retreats.  They 

*  See  Ross  Lewin’s  With  the  22nd  in  the  Peninsular  War,  p. 
205. 

f  Sergeant  Anton’s  Retrospect  of  a  Military  Life,  pp.  60,  61. 

\  Rough  Notes  of  an  Old  Soldier,  vol.  i.  pp.  74,  75. 


The  Soldiers’  Wives 


275 


became  the  subject  of  a  General  Order,  for  their  own  special 
guidance.  They  were  under  no  control,  and  were  always 
first  mounted  up  and  away,  blocking  up  narrow  passes 
and  checking  the  advance  of  the  army  with  their  donkeys, 
after  repeated  orders  to  follow  in  rear  of  their  respective 
corps,  or  their  donkeys  would  be  shot.  On  the  retreat 
from  Burgos  I  remember  Mrs.  Biddy  Flyn  remarking,  ‘  i» 
would  like  to  see  the  man  that  wud  shoot  my  donkey  : 
faith,  I’ll  be  too  early  away  for  any  of  ’em  to  catch  me. 
Will  you  come  wid  me,  girls  ?  ’  ‘  Aye,  indeed,  every  one 

of  us.’  And  away  they  started  at  early  dawn,  cracking 
their  jokes  about  divisional  orders,  Wellington,  commanding 
officers,  and  their  next  bivouac.  Alas  !  the  Provost  Marshal 
was  in  advance — a  man  in  authority,  and  a  terror  to  evil 
doers  :  he  was  waiting  a  mile  or  two  on,  in  a  narrow  turn 
of  the  road,  for  the  ladies,  with  a  party  all  loaded.  He  gave 
orders  to  shoot  the  first  two  donkeys  pour  exemple.  There 
was  a  wild,  fierce  and  furious  yell  struck  up,  with  more 
weeping  and  lamentation  than  one  usually  hears  at  an 
Irish  funeral,  with  sundry  prayers  for  the  vagabone  that  had 
murdered  the  lives  of  the  poor  darling  innocent  crathers. 

‘  Bad  luck  to  the  ugly  face  of  the  Provost,  the  spy  of  the 
camp,  may  he  niver  see  home  till  the  vultures  have  picked 
his  eyes  out,  the  born  varmint,’  and  so  on.  The  victims 
picked  up  what  they  could  carry,  and  marched  along  with 
the  regiment,  crying  and  lamenting  their  bitter  fate.  It 
was  wonderful  what  they  endured — but  in  spite  of  this 
warning  they  were  foremost  on  the  line  of  march  next 
morning  again.  As  Mrs.  Skiddy,  their  leader,  said,  ‘  We 
must  risk  something  to  be  in  before  the  men,  to  have  the 
fire  and  a  dhrop  of  tay  ready  for  them  after  their  load  and 
their  labour:  and  sure  if  we  went  in  the  rare  the  French, 
bad  luck  to  them,  would  pick  me  up,  me  and  my 
donkey,  and  then  Dan  Skiddy  would  be  lost  entirely 
without  me.’  ” 

The  soldiers’  wives  were  indeed  an  extraordinary  com¬ 
munity — as  hard  as  nails,  expert  plunderers,  furious 


276 


The  Impedimenta 


partisans  of  the  supreme  excellence  of  their  own  battalion, 
much  given  to  fighting.  Many  of  them  were  widows  twice 
and  even  thrice  over — for  when  a  married  man  was  shot, 
and  his  wife  was  a  capable  and  desirable  person,  she  would 
receive  half  a  dozen  proposals  before  her  husband  was 
forty-eight  hours  in  his  grave.  And  since  the  alternative 
was  a  hazardous  voyage  back  to  relatives  in  England  or 
Ireland,  who  had  probably  broken  off  with  the  “  girl  who  ran 
away  with  a  soldier,”  most  of  the  widows  concluded  to  stop 
with  the  battalion,  with  a  new  spouse  and  a  new  name. 
As  the  war  dragged  on  many  of  the  men  picked  up  Portu¬ 
guese  and  Spanish  helpmates,  who  joined  the  regimental 
drove,  and  made  it  strangely  polyglot.  At  the  end  of  the 
struggle  in  1814  there  was  a  most  harrowing  scene  at 
Bordeaux,  when  the  general  order  was  issued  that  all  these 
foreigners  who  could  not  prove  that  they  had  been  legiti¬ 
mately  married  to  soldiers,  with  the  colonel’s  leave,  were 
to  be  refused  transport  to  the  British  Isles.*  There  were 
hundreds  of  them,  and  only  in  a  few  cases  could  the  men 
find  money  to  get  them  taken  home  in  private  merchantmen. 
The  bulk  marched  back  to  the  Peninsula  in  charge  of  a 
brigade  of  homeward  bound  Portuguese — a  most  melancholy 
and  distressful  assembly.! 

It  is  extraordinary  to  find  that  a  sprinkling  of  the  officers 
of  the  Peninsular  Army  were  unwise  enough  to  take  their 
wives  with  them  to  the  front — thereby  securing  a  life  of 
wearing  anxiety  for  both,  and  of  dire  hardship  for  the  poor 
ladies.  One  of  the  best  known  cases  was  that  of  Hill’s 
senior  aide-de-camp,  Captain  Currie,  whose  wife  I  have 
found  mentioned  half  a  dozen  times  as  making  tea  for  the 
second  division  staff,  and  holding  a  little  reception  whenever 
the  division  was  settled  down  for  a  few  days.  Another 

*  Wellington  (General  Order  of  April  26,  1814)  makes  the  con 
cession  that  colonels  may  permit  “  a  few  who  have  proved  themselves 
useful  and  regular,”  to  accompany  the  soldiers  to  whom  they  are 
attached  “  with  a  view  to  being  ultimately  married.” 

j-  For  details  see  Donaldson’s  Eventful  Life  of  a  Soldier,  pp. 
231,  232. 


Ladies  at  the  Front 


277 


was  Mrs.  Dalbiac,  wife  of  the  colonel  of  the  4th  Dragoons, 
whose  adventures  on  the  field  of  Salamanca  are  mentioned 
by  Napier.*  But  the  best  chronicle  of  the  ups  and  downs 
of  a  young  married  couple  may  be  found  in  the  breezy 
autobiography  of  Sir  Harry  Smith,  then  a  subaltern  in  the 
95th  Rifles.  His  tale  is  well  known — he  rescued  a  young 
Spanish  lady  among  the  horrors  of  the  sack  of  Badajoz, 
married  her  two  days  later,  and  had  her  with  him  for  the 
remaining  three  years  of  the  war.  The  story  of  their 
Odyssey,  as  related  by  him,  is  one  of  the  most  touching 
narratives  of  loyal  love,  and  hardship  cheerfully  borne, 
that  any  man  can  read.  They  lived  together  for  forty 
years  in  storm  and  sunshine,  and  she  survived  to  christen 
the  town  of  Ladysmith  by  her  name,  while  her  husband 
was  commanding  the  forces  in  South  Africa.  He  gave 
his  name  to  the  sister  town  of  Harrismith,  less  well  remem¬ 
bered  now  than  the  long-besieged  place  with  which  the 
memory  of  Juana  Smith  is  linked. 

There  is  a  sketch  in  Paris  by  the  well-known  artist, 
Colonel  Lejeune,  who,  when  a  prisoner  at  Elvas,  made  a 
drawing  of  an  English  military  family  which  passed  him. 
As  he  describes  it  in  his  diary,  “  The  captain  rode  first  on 
a  very  fine  horse,  warding  off  the  sun  with  a  parasol :  then 
came  his  wife  very  prettily  dressed,  with  a  small  straw  hat, 
riding  on  a  mule  and  carrying  not  only  a  parasol,  hut  a  little 
black  and  tan  dog  on  her  knee,  while  she  led  by  a  cord  a 
she-goat,  to  supply  her  with  milk.  Beside  madame  walked 
her  Irish  nurse,  carrying  in  a  green  silk  wrapper  a  baby, 
the  hope  of  the  family.  A  grenadier,  the  captain’s  servant, 
came  behind  and  occasionally  poked  up  the  long-eared 
steed  of  his  mistress  with  a  staff.  Last  in  the  procession 
came  a  donkey  loaded  with  much  miscellaneous  baggage, 
which  included  a  tea-kettle  and  a  cage  of  canaries  ;  it  was 
guarded  by  an  English  servant  in  livery,  mounted  on  a 
sturdy  cob  and  carrying  a  long  posting-whip,  with  which 

*  History  of  the  Peninsular  War,  vol.  iv.  p.  276.  Also  mentioned 
in  Tomkinson’s  Diary,  p.  185. 


278 


The  Impedimenta 


he  occasionally  made  the  donkey  mend  its  pace.”  *  If  this 
picture  is  not  exaggerated,  it  certainly  helps  us  to  under¬ 
stand  the  strong  objection  which  Wellington  had  for  ladies 
at  the  front,  and  all  forms  of  impedimenta. 

*  Memoirs  of  Lejeune,  vol.  ii.  p.  108.  I  am  a  little  inclined  to 
think  that  this  may  have  been  the  household  establishment  of 
Hill’s  senior  aide-de-camp,  Currie,  as  the  sight  was  seen  by  Lejeune 
in  the  Elvas-Olivenza  direction,  where  the  2nd  division  was  then 
quartered. 


CHAPTER  XVII 


A  NOTE  ON  SIEGES 

Every  one  knows  that  the  record  of  the  Peninsular  Army 
in  the  matter  of  sieges  is  not  the  most  brilliant  page  in  its 
annals.  It  is  not  to  the  orgies  that  followed  the  storm  of 
Badajoz  or  San  Sebastian  that  allusion  is  here  made,  but 
to  the  operations  that  preceded  them,  and  to  the  unhappy 
incidents  that  accompanied  the  luckless  siege  of  Burgos. 
Courage  enough  and  to  spare  was  lavished  on  those  bloody 
leaguers  ;  perseverance  was  shown  in  no  small  measure  ; 
and  to  a  certain  extent  professional  skill  was  not  lacking. 
But  the  tale  compares  miserably  with  the  great  story  of  the 
triumphs  of  Wellington’s  army  in  the  open  field.  Reckless 
bravery  had  to  supply  the  place  of  the  machinery  and 
organization  that  was  lacking,  and  too  much  blood  was 
spilt,  and  sometimes  spilt  to  no  effect. 

The  responsibility  for  these  facts  is  hard  to  distribute. 
As  is  generally  the  case  when  failures  are  made,  it  is  clear 
that  a  system  was  to  blame  rather  than  any  individual,  or 
body  of  individuals.  Great  Britain  had  been  at  war  with 
France  for  some  sixteen  years  ;  but  in  all  her  countless 
expeditions  she  had  never,  since  1794,  been  compelled  to 
undertake  regular  sieges  on  a  large  scale.  The  battering 
of  old-fashioned  native  forts  in  India,  the  blockades  of 
Malta  or  Alexandria,  the  bombardments  of  Flushing  or 
Copenhagen,  need  hardly  be  mentioned.  They  were  not 
operations  such  as  those  which  Wellington  had  to  carry 
out  in  1811  or  1812.  For  a  long  time  the  Peninsular  War 
had  been  considered  as  a  purely  defensive  affair  ;  it  was 


280 


A  Note  on  Sieges 


concerned  with  the  protection  of  Portugal,  almost  (we 
might  say)  of  Lisbon,  from  the  French  invader.  The 
home  Government  kept  sending  reinforcements  to  Welling¬ 
ton,  but  they  were  under  the  impression  that  an  over¬ 
powerful  combination  of  the  enemy’s  forces  might  some  day 
force  him  to  re-embark.  He  himself  regarded  such  a 
contingency  as  by  no  means  impossible. 

But  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1811  it  became  clear  that  a 
defensive  war  may  have  offensive  episodes.  After  Massena’s 
retreat  from  before  the  Lines  of  Torres  Vedras,  Wellington 
had  to  protect  the  frontiers  of  Portugal  ;  and  to  guard 
them  efficiently  he  needed  possession  of  Almeida,  Ciudad 
Rodrigo,  and  Badajoz,  which  had  all  been  in  the  hands  of 
the  allies  in  the  summer  of  1810,  but  were  now  French 
fortresses.  To  subdue  these  three  places  he  required  a 
large  battering-train,  properly  equipped  for  movement, 
and  such  a  thing  was  not  at  his  disposition.  There  were  a 
number  of  heavy  guns  mounted  on  the  Lines  of  Torres 
Vedras,  and  on  the  ramparts  of  Elvas,  Abrantes,  and  Peniche. 
There  were  also  many  companies  of  Portuguese  gunners 
attached  to  those  guns,  and  a  lesser  number  of  British  com¬ 
panies  which  had  been  immobilized  in  the  Lisbon  lines. 
But  heavy  guns  and  gunners  combined  do  not  complete  a 
battering  train.  An  immense  amount  of  transport  was 
required,  and  in  the  spring  of  1811  it  was  not  at  Welling¬ 
ton’s  disposition.  Well-nigh  every  available  ox-cart  and 
mule  in  Portugal  was  already  employed  in  carrying  the 
provisions  and  baggage  of  the  field  army.  And  water 
transport,  which  would  have  been  very  valuable,  could 
only  be  used  for  a  few  miles  of  the  lower  courses  of  the 
Tagus  and  Douro.  To  begin  a  regular  siege  of  Almeida  in 
April,  1811,  was  absolutely  impossible,  not  because  there 
were  not  guns  or  gunners  in  Portugal,  but  because  there 
were  no  means  of  moving  them  at  the  time.  Wellington 
did  not  even  attempt  it,  contenting  himself  with  a  mere 
blockade.  On  the  other  flank  an  endeavour  was  made 
to  besiege  Badajoz,  but  this  was  only  possible  because 


Wellington’s  Battering  Train  281 


within  a  few  miles  of  that  city  lay  the  Portuguese  fortress 
of  Elvas,  from  whose  walls  was  borrowed  the  hastily 
improvised  and  imperfect  battering-train  with  which  the 
Spanish  stronghold  was  attacked. 

The  first  two  sieges  of  Badajoz  in  1811  were  lamentable 
failures,  precisely  because  this  haphazard  battering-train 
was  wholly  inadequate  for  the  end  to  which  it  was  applied. 
Alexander  Dickson,  the  zealous  and  capable  officer  placed 
in  charge  of  the  artillery,  was  set  an  impossible  task.  He 
had  about  400  Portuguese  and  120  English  gunners,  all 
equally  untrained  in  siege  duty,  to  work  a  strange  collec¬ 
tion  of  antiquated  and  unserviceable  cannon.  The  pieces 
borrowed  from  Elvas  were  of  irregular  calibre  and  ancient 
pattern.  Almost  incredible  as  it  may  appear,  some  of  these 
long  brass  24-pounders  were  nearly  two  hundred  years 
old — observers  noted  on  them  the  arms  and  cyphers  not 
only  of  John  IV.  the  first  king  of  the  Braganza  dynasty, 
but  of  Philip  III.  and  Philip  IV.  of  Spain,  the  contemporaries 
of  our  James  I.  and  Charles  I.*  Even  the  better  guns  were 
of  obsolete  eighteenth-century  types.  No  two  had  the 
same  bore,  nor  were  the  shot  supplied  for  them  uniform  in 
size  ;  it  was  necessary  to  cull  and  select  a  special  heap  of 
balls  for  each  particular  gun.  The  whole  formed,  indeed, 
a  sort  of  artillery  museum  rather  than  an  effective  battering- 
train.  The  guns  shot  wildly  and  weakly,  and  their  gunners 
were  inexperienced.  No  wonder  that  their  effect  was  poor. 

But  this  was  not  all :  indeed,  the  inefficiency  of  the 
guns  was  perhaps  the  secondary  rather  than  the  primary 
cause  of  the  failure  of  the  two  early  sieges  of  Badajoz. 
More  important  still  was  it  that  Wellington  was  as  weak 
in  the  engineer  as  in  the  artillery  arm.  The  number  of 
trained  officers  of  engineers  with  the  Peninsular  Army  was 
very  small — not  much  over  thirty;  but  of  rank  and  file 
to  serve  under  them  there  were  practically  none.  Of  the 
corps  called  the  “  Royal  Military  Artificers,”  the  ancestors 
of  the  “  Royal  Sappers  and  Miners,”  there  were  actually 
*  See  Dickson  Papers  I.,  p.  448. 


282 


A  Note  on  Sieges 


only  thirty-four  attached  to  the  army  in  1810,  and  it  was 
far  on  in  1811  before  their  numbers  reached  a  hundred. 
Many  of  them  were  with  Wellington’s  field  army  on  the 
distant  frontier  of  Beira,  and  before  Badajoz,  in  May,  there 
were  little  more  than  a  score.  For  the  trench-work  of  the 
siege  untrained  volunteers  had  to  be  borrowed  from  the 
line  battalions,  and  to  be  instructed  by  the  engineer  officers 
actually  under  the  fire  of  the  French  guns.  Their  teachers 
were  almost  all  as  ignorant  of  practical  siege  operations  as 
themselves  ;  the  British  Army,  as  has  already  been  remarked, 
had  done  little  work  of  the  sort  for  many  years. 

The  officers,  it  is  true,  were  zealous  and  often  clever  ; 
the  men  were  recklessly  brave,  if  unpractised  in  the  simplest 
elements  of  siegecraft.  But  good-will  could  not  atone  for 
want  of  experience,  and  it  seems  clear  that  in  these  early 
sieges  the  plans  were  often  unwise,  and  the  execution  un¬ 
skilful.  The  points  of  attack  selected  at  Badajoz  were  the 
strongest  and  least  accessible  points  of  the  fortress,  not 
those  against  which  the  French  had  operated  in  their 
earlier  siege  in  February  with  success.  This  choice  had 
been  made  because  the  British  were  working  “  against 
time  ”  ;  there  were  French  armies  collecting  for  the  relief 
of  Badajoz,  and  if  the  leaguer  took  many  weeks,  it  was 
certain  that  an  overwhelming  force  would  be  brought 
against  the  besiegers  and  compel  them  to  depart.  Hence 
the  engineer  officers,  in  both  the  unsuccessful  sieges,  tried 
to  break  in  at  points  where  victory  would  be  decisive  ; 
they  thought  it  would  be  useless  to  begin  by  capturing 
outworks,  or  by  making  a  lodgment  in  the  lower  parts  of 
the  city,  which  would  leave  its  stronger  points  intact  and 
capable  of  further  defence.  They  battered  the  high-lying 
fort  of  San  Cristobal,  and  the  citadel  on  its  precipitous 
height,  arguing  that  if  they  could  capture  either  of  them 
the  whole  fortress  was  at  their  mercy.  Both'  the  points 
assailed  turned  out  to  be  too  strong  :  the  stony  hill  of 
San  Cristobal  proved  impossible  for  trench  work  ;  desperate 
attempts  to  storm  the  fort  that  crowned  it,  by  columns 


Colonel  Dickson’s  Work 


283 


advancing  across  the  open,  were  beaten  off  with  heavy  loss. 
The  castle  walls,  after  long  battering,  refused  to  crumble 
into  practicable  breaches.  Before  anything  decisive  had 
been  accomplished,  the  French  armies  of  succour  came  up. 
Beresford  beat  the  first  at  Albuera  in  May  and  renewed  the 
siege  ;  the  second  (Soult  and  Marmont  combined)  was  so 
strong  that  Wellington  dared  not  face  it,  and  withdrew 
from  his  abandoned  trenches  to  within  the  Portuguese 
frontier  in  July. 

A  great  change  for  the  better  in  Wellington’s  position 
as  regards  sieges  had  been  made  by  the  autumn  of  1811. 
He  had  at  last  received  a  number  of  good  modern  British 
iron  guns,  much  superior  to  the  old  Portuguese  brass  24- 
pounders.  And  with  infinite  trouble  and  delay  he  had 
at  last  created  a  battering -train  that  could  move.  This 
was  the  work  of  Alexander  Dickson,  already  mentioned, 
who  was  occupied  from  July  to  November  in  accumulating 
at  the  obscure  town  of  Villa  da  Ponte,  behind  Almeida, 
masses  of  waggon-transport  and  trains  of  mules  and  oxen, 
for  the  moving  of  the  heavy  cannon  and  the  immense  store 
of  ammunition  belonging  to  them.  The  guns  were  brought 
up  the  Douro  to  Lamego,  where  the  river  ceased  to  be 
navigable,  and  then  dragged  over  the  hills  by  oxen.  Several 
companies  of  Portuguese  and  British  gunners  were  attached 
to  the  park,  and  instructed,  so  far  as  was  possible,  in 
siege  work.  At  the  same  time  the  military  artificers — 
still  far  too  few  in  numbers — were  instructing  volunteers 
from  the  line  in  the  making  of  a  great  store  of  gabions,  plat¬ 
forms,  fascines,  and  other  necessaries. 

This  long  preparation,  which  was  almost  unsuspected 
by  the  French,  because  it  was  unostentatious  and  made  at 
a  great  distance  from  the  front,  enabled  Wellington  to 
execute  the  siege  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo  in  January,  1812, 
with  unexampled  rapidity  and  success.  The  fortress  was 
not  one  of  the  first  class,  the  garrison  was  rather  weak,  the 
battering-train  was  now  ample  for  the  task  required  of 
it,  and,  to  the  surprise  and  dismay  of  Marmont,  Rodrigo 


284 


A  Note  on  Sieges 


fell  after  a  siege  of  only  twelve  days  at  midwinter  (January 
7-19)  long  before  he  could  collect  his  scattered  divisions 
for  its  relief. 

The  third  attack  on  Badajoz,  in  March- April,  1812, 
turned  out  a  much  less  satisfactory  business,  though  it 
ended  in  a  triumphant  success.  Like  the  two  sieges  of 
the  preceding  year,  it  was  conducted  “  against  time  ”  ; 
Wellington  being  fully  aware  that  if  it  went  on  too  long  the 
relieving  armies  would  be  upon  him.  The  means  employed 
were  more  adequate  than  those  of  1811,  though  only  a 
part  of  the  battering-train  that  had  subdued  Ciudad 
Rodrigo  could  be  brought  across  the  hills  from  the  distant 
frontier  of  Beira.  The  remainder  was  composed  of  ship- 
guns  borrowed  from  Lisbon.  But  though  the  artillery 
was  not  inadequate,  and  the  walls  were  thoroughly  well 
breached,  both  the  trench-work  and  the  storm  cost  over- 
many  lives.  Indeed,  the  main  assault  on  the  breaches 
failed,  and  the  town  fell  because  two  subsidiary  attacks 
by  escalade,  one  carried  out  by  Picton,  the  other  by  General 
Walker  with  a  brigade  of  the  5th  Division,  were  both 
triumphantly  successful.  Wellington  laid  the  blame  of 
the  fearful  loss  of  life  upon  the  fact  that  his  engineers  had 
no  trained  sappers  to  help  them,  and  were  unskilled  in 
siegecraft.  They  had  attacked  a  point  of  the  defences  far 
more  promising  than  those  battered  in  1811,  and  had  opened 
up  immense  gaps  in  the  defences,  but  nevertheless  he  was 
not  satisfied  with  their  direction.  In  a  private  letter  to 
Lord  Liverpool,  which  is  not  printed  in  either  of  the  two 
series  of  his  dispatches,  he  wrote  : — 

“  The  capture  of  Badajoz  affords  as  strong  an  instance 
of  the  gallantry  of  our  troops  as  has  ever  been  displayed. 
But  I  anxiously  hope  that  I  shall  never  again  be  the  instru¬ 
ment  of  putting  them  to  such  a  test  as  that  to  which  they 
were  put  last  night.  I  assure  your  lordship  that  it  is  quite 
impossible  to  carry  fortified  places  by  ‘  vive  force  ’  without 
incurring  great  loss,  and  being  exposed  to  the  chance  of 
failure,  unless  the  army  should  be  provided  with  a  sufficient 


PLATE  VI I. 


Private  of  Heavy  Drac.oons.  Officer  of  Field  Artillery. 

1809.  1809. 


Wellington  and  His  Engineers  285 


trained  corps  of  sappers  and  miners.  .  .  .  The  consequence 
of  being  so  unprovided  with  the  people  necessary  to  approach 
a  regularly  fortified  place  are,  first,  that  our  engineers, 
though  well-educated  and  brave,  have  never  turned  their 
minds  to  the  mode  of  conducting  a  regular  siege,  as  it  is 
useless  to  think  of  that  which  it  is  impossible,  in  our  service, 
to  perform.  They  think  they  have  done  their  duty  when 
they  have  constructed  a  battery  with  a  secure  communica¬ 
tion  to  it,  which  can  breach  the  place.  Secondly,  these 
breaches  have  to  be  carried  by  vive  force,  at  an  infinite 
sacrifice  of  officers  and  soldiers.  .  .  .  These  great  losses 
could  be  avoided,  and,  in  my  opinion,  time  gained  in  every 
siege,  if  we  had  properly  trained  people  to  carry  it  on. 
I  declare  that  I  have  never  seen  breaches  more  practicable 
in  themselves  than  the  three  in  the  walls  of  Badajoz,  and 
the  fortress  must  have  surrendered  with  these  breaches 
open,  if  I  had  been  able  to  ‘  approach  ’  the  place.  But 
when  I  had  made  the  third  breach  on  the  evening  of  the  6tli, 
I  could  do  no  more.  I  was  then  obliged  either  to  storm  or 
to  give  the  business  up,  and  when  I  ordered  the  assault,  I 
was  certain  that  I  should  lose  our  best  officers  and  men. 
It  is  a  cruel  situation  for  any  person  to  be  placed  in,  and  I 
earnestly  recommend  to  your  lordship  to  have  a  corps  of 
sappers  and  miners  formed  without  loss  of  time.”  * 

The  slaughter  of  Badajoz,  then,  in  Wellington’s  estima¬ 
tion,  was  due  partly  to  the  fact  that  the  British  Army, 
unlike  all  other  armies,  lacked  regular  companies  of  sappers 
and  miners,  and  partly  to  the  inexperience  of  the  engineer 
officers  in  carrying  out  the  last  stages  of  a  siege — the 
advance  towards  the  glacis  and  the  ditch  by  scientific 
trench-work.  They  did  not,  he  says,  “  turn  their  mind  ” 
towards  such  operations,  because  they  had  never  been 
furnished  with  skilled  workmen  to  carry  them  out.  That 
sappers  and  miners  did  not  exist  as  yet  was  not  the  fault 
of  Wellington,  nor  of  the  ministers,  but  of  the  professional 

*  This  letter,  found  among  Lord  Liverpool’s  papers  in  I860,  was 
communicated  to  mo  by  Mr.  F.  Turner  of  Fromo. 


286 


A  Note  on  Sieges 


advisers  of  the  administration,  who  should  long  ago  have 
pointed  out  that  such  a  corps  was  wanted.  That  the 
Liverpool  ministry  was  not  slow  to  take  advice  was  shown 
by  the  fact  that  they  at  once  converted  the  already  existing 
“  Military  Artificers  ”  into  sappers.  On  April  23,  less  than 
three  weeks  after  Badajos  fell,  a  warrant  was  issued  for 
instructing  the  corps  in  military  field  works,  and  shortly 
after  six  companies  were  ordered  to  be  sent  to  the  Peninsula 
the  moment  that  they  should  have  received  such  training. 
On  August  4  the  name  of  the  whole  corps  was  changed 
from  Royal  Military  Artificers  to  Royal  Sappers  and  Miners.* 
It  was  not,  of  course,  till  very  late  in  the  year  that  the  first 
of  the  new  sapper  companies  joined  Wellington,  but  by 
the  next  spring  he  had  300  trained  men  with  him. 

Meanwhile  they  had  of  course  arrived  too  late  for  the 
siege  of  Burgos,  the  most  unhappy  of  all  Wellington’s 
leaguers,  where  the  whole  trench- work  was  conducted  by 
volunteers  from  the  line  directed  by  precisely  eight  of  the 
old  artificers — of  whom  one  was  killed  and  the  remaining 
seven  wounded.  The  story  of  the  Burgos  operations  reads 
like  an  exaggerated  repetition  of  the  first  siege  of  Badajoz. 
The  battering-train  that  took  Badajoz  had  been  left  behind, 
and  to  attack  Burgos  (whose  strength  was  undervalued) 
Wellington  had  with  him  no  proper  means.  Only  eight  guns 
were  brought  up — because  the  transport  with  the  army 
could  only  provide  a  few  spare  teams,  and  the  whole  of 
Castile  had  been  swept  clear  of  draught-beasts.  This 
ridiculously  weak  train  proved  wholly  insufficient  for  the 
work  set  it.  “  Had  there  been  a  siege  establishment  with 
the  army  even  moderately  efficient,  so  as  to  have  admitted 
of  the  performance  of  the  rudiments  of  the  art,  the  attack 
(even  with  the  inadequate  artillery)  might  have  been  carried 
through,”  writes  the  historian  of  the  Peninsular  sieges.f 
But  there  were  only  five  engineer  officers  present,  just 
eight  artificers,  no  tools  save  regimental  picks  and  shovels 

*  See  Connolly’s  Royal  Sappers  and  Miners,  pp.  187-8  and  194. 

f  Jones,  Sieges  of  the  Peninsula,  i.  p.  169. 


The  Failure  at  Burgos 


287 


borrowed  from  line  regiments,  no  material  save  wood 
requisitioned  from  the  town  of  Burgos,  and  so  little  transport 
that  the  fire  had  sometimes  to  cease,  to  allow  fresh  ammu¬ 
nition  to  be  brought  up  from  the  distant  Madrid.  Welling¬ 
ton  ordered  repeated  assaults  on  the  inadequately  battered 
walls  ;  they  all  failed,  and  he  finally  retired  after  thirty-two 
days  of  open  trenches,  and  with  the  loss  of  nearly  2000  men, 
from  before  a  “  bicocque,”  as  the  French  called  it,  which 
could  not  have  withstood  a  proper  battering-train  for  a 
third  of  that  time. 

The  fact  is  that  Wellington  had  undervalued  the  strength 
of  Burgos  ;  he  thought  it  would  fall  easily.  If  he  had 
known  that  it  would  hold  out  for  more  than  a  month,  he 
could  have  procured  more  guns  from  the  captured  French 
arsenal  at  Madrid,  and  might  have  requisitioned  all  the 
beasts  of  the  army  to  draw  them.  But  by  the  time  that 
it  began  to  be  seen  that  Burgos  was  not  about  to  yield  to 
a  mere  demonstration,  it  was  too  late  to  get  up  the  necessary 
means  of  reducing  it.  Finally,  the  French  armies  mustered 
for  its  relief,  and  the  British  had  to  retire.  It  may  be 
added  that  the  besieging  troops,  thoroughly  disgusted  with 
the  inadequate  means  used  to  prepare  the  way  for  them, 
did  not  act  with  the  same  energy  that  had  been  shown  at 
Rodrigo  or  Badajoz.  Several  of  the  assaults  were  not 
pushed  well  home,  and  the  trench-work  was  slack.  Well¬ 
ington  WTote,  in  his  General  Orders  for  October  3,  a  stiff 
rebuke,  to  the  effect  that  “  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  this 
army  should  know  that  to  work  during  a  siege  is  as  much  a 
part  of  their  duty  as  to  engage  the  enemy  in  the  field  ; 
and  they  may  depend  upon  it  that  unless  they  perform 
the  work  allotted  to  them  with  due  diligence,  they  cannot 
acquire  the  honour  which  their  comrades  have  wron  in 
former  sieges.  .  .  .  The  Commander-in-Chief  hopes  he 
shall  have  no  reason  to  complain  in  future.”  * 

The  leaguer  of  San  Sebastian,  the  last  of  Well¬ 
ington’s  sieges,  bore  a  great  likeness  to  the  last  siege 
*  General  Orders,  p.  275. 


288 


A  Note  on  Sieges 


of  Badajoz.  It  was  conducted  in  a  time  of  considerable 
anxiety,  while  the  army  of  Soult  was  making  vigorous  and 
repeated  efforts  to  frustrate  it.  The  place  was  strong  by 
nature — a  towering  castle  with  the  town  at  its  foot  joined 
to  the  mainland  only  by  a  narrow  sandy  spit ;  the  defences 
of  this  isthmus  were  short,  and  reached  from  sea  to  sea  : 
they  were  fully  commanded  by  the  castle  behind.  The 
first  great  assault  (July  25,  1813)  was  made  while  the 
trenches  were  still  far  from  the  walls,  and  while  the  fire  of 
the  besieged  had  not  been  silenced.  It  failed  with  heavy 
loss.  The  second  assault  (August  31)  was  successful,  but 
very  bloody — 2000  men  were  killed  or  wounded.  The  most 
authoritative  commentator  writes  :  “  The  operations  against 
San  Sebastian  afford  a  most  impressive  lesson  on  the 
advantages  of  proceeding  step  by  step,  and  with  due  atten¬ 
tion  to  science  and  rule.  The  attempt  there  made  to 
overcome  or  trample  on  such  restrictions  caused  a  certain 
operation  of  twenty  days  to  extend  to  sixty.  It  bears 
strong  testimony  to  the  truth  of  the  maxim  laid  down  by 
Marshal  Vauban :  ‘  La  precipitation  dans  les  sieges  ne 
hate  point  la  prise  des  places,  la  retarde  souvent,  et  en- 
sanglante  tou jours  la  scene.’  ”  * 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  siege-work  was  loathed  by 
the  rank  and  file,  not  so  much  for  its  danger — there  was  never 
any  lack  of  volunteers  for  a  forlorn  hope — but  for  its  dis¬ 
comfort.  There  was  a  sort  of  underlying  feeling  that  en¬ 
trenching  was  not  soldier’s  but  navvy’s  work  ;  the  long 
hiding  under  cover  in  cramped  positions,  which  was  abso¬ 
lutely  necessary,  was  looked  upon  as  a  sort  of  skulking. 
With  an  unwise  disregard  for  their  personal  safety,  which 
had  a  touch  of  bravado  and  more  than  a  touch  of  sulkiness 
in  it,  the  men  exposed  themselves  far  more  than  was 
necessary.  I  fancy  that  on  some  occasions,  notably  at 
the  early  sieges  of  Badajoz  and  at  Burgos,  there  was  a  general 
feeling  that  matters  were  not  being  scientifically  or  ade¬ 
quately  conducted,  and  that  too  much  was  being  asked  of 
*  Jones’  Sieges  of  the  Peninsula,  ii.  p.  97. 


Trench  Work 


289 


the  rank  and  file,  when  they  were  made  to  attempt  a  hard 
task  without  the  proper  means.  It  must  have  been  clear  to 
them  that  there  were  too  few  engineer  officers,  not  enough 
artillery,  and  no  proper  provision  of  tools.  Hence  came 
a  spirit  of  anger  and  discontent. 

At  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  and  at  the  third  and  last  leaguer 
of  Badajoz,  the  weather  was  so  abominable  that  the  siege- 
work  was  long  looked  back  on  as  a  perfect  nightmare. 
At  Rodrigo,  in  the  high  upland  of  Leon,  the  month  of  January 
was  a  combination  of  frost  and  rain  ;  the  water  accumu¬ 
lated  in  the  trenches  and  there  often  froze,  so  that  the  men 
were  standing  ankle-deep  in  a  mixture  of  ice  and  mud, 
and  since  they  could  not  move  about,  because  of  the 
enemy’s  incessant  fire,  suffered  horribly  from  cold.  At 
Badajoz  there  was  no  frost :  but  incessant  chilling  rain  was 
almost  as  bad  during  the  early  weeks  of  the  siege  ;  the 
trenches  were  often  two  feet  deep  in  water,  and  the  work 
of  the  spade  was  almost  useless,  since  the  liquid  mud  that 
was  shovelled  up  ran  away  in  streams  out  of  the  gabions 
into  which  it  was  cast,  and  refused  to  pile  up  into  parapets 
for  the  trenches,  spreading  out  instead  into  mere  broad 
accumulations  of  slime,  which  gave  no  cover,  and  had  no 
resisting  power  against  the  round  shot  of  the  garrison. 
I  imagine  that  the  desperate  and  dirty  toil  in  those  opera¬ 
tions,  protracted  over  many  days  of  abominable  discomfort 
as  well  as  danger,  accounts  in  great  measure  for  the  ferocious 
spirit  shown  by  the  victors  both  at  Rodrigo  and  Badajoz. 
The  men  were  in  a  blind  rage  at  the  misery  which  they  had 
been  enduring,  and  it  found  vent,  after  the  storm  was 
over,  in  misconduct  far  surpassing  that  which  would  have 
followed  a  pitched  battle  where  the  losses  had  been  equally 
great.  One  observer  writes  :  “  The  spirit  of  the  soldiers 
rose  to  a  frightful  height — I  say  frightful  because  it  was 
not  of  that  sort  which  denoted  exultation  at  the  prospect 
of  achieving  an  exploit  which  was  about  to  hold  them  up 
to  the  admiration  of  the  world  ;  there  was  a  certain  some¬ 
thing  in  their  bearing  which  told  plainly  that  they  had 

u 


290 


A  Word  on  Sieges 


suffered  fatigues  of  which  they  had  not  complained,  and 
seen  their  comrades  and  officers  slain  around  them  without 
repining,  but  that  they  had  smarted  under  the  one  and 
felt  acutely  for  the  other.  They  smothered  both,  so  long 
as  body  and  mind  were  employed,  but  now,  before  the 
storm,  they  had  a  momentary  licence  to  think,  and  every 
fine  feeling  vanished — plunder  and  revenge  took  their 
place.  ...  A  quiet  but  desperate  calm  replaced  their 
usual  buoyant  spirits,  and  nothing  was  observable  in  their 
manner  but  a  tiger-like  expression  of  anxiety  to  seize  upon 
their  prey.”  * 

Preparation  for  the  storm  affected  different  men  in 
different  ways  :  some  tried  to  make  up  old  quarrels  and 
exchanged  words  of  forgiveness ;  a  good  many  wrote 
letters  home,  which  were  to  be  delivered  only  in  the  case 
of  their  falling.  “  Each  arranged  himself  for  the  combat  in 
such  manner  as  his  fancy  would  admit  of  :  some  by  lowering 
their  cartridge-boxes,  others  by  turning  them  to  the  front 
for  more  convenient  use  ;  others  unclasped  their  stocks 
or  opened  their  shirt  collars  ;  others  oiled  their  bayonets. 
Those  who  had  them  took  leave  of  their  wives  and  children 
— an  affecting  sight,  but  not  so  much  so  as  might  have 
been  expected,  because  the  women,  from  long  habit,  were 
accustomed  to  such  scenes  of  danger.”  t 

One  intelligent  sergeant  speaks  of  the  moment  of  waiting 
for  the  order  to  storm  as  full  of  a  stress  that  nothing  else 
could  produce  :  “  We  felt  a  dead  weight  hanging  on  our 
minds  ;  had  we  been  brought  hurriedly  into  action,  it  would 
have  been  quite  different,  but  it  is  inconsistent  with  the 
nature  of  man  not  to  feel  as  I  have  described.  The  long 
warning,  the  dark  and  silent  night,  the  known  strength 
of  the  fortress,  the  imminent  danger  of  the  attack,  all 
conspired  to  produce  this  feeling.  It  was  not  the  result  of 
want  of  courage,  as  was  shown  by  the  calm  intrepidity  of 
the  advance  when  we  came  in  range  of  the  French 

*  Grattan’s  With  the  Connaught  Rangers,  pp.  193,  194. 

f  Grattan,  dealing  with  the  Storm  of  Rodrigo,‘p.  145. 


Waiting  for  the  Storm 


291 


cannon.”  *  That  the  revulsion  from  the  long  waiting  took 
the  shape  of  frenzied  violence,  when  the  men  were  at  last 
let  loose,  was  not  unnatural.  A  certain  amount  of  the  horrors 
which  took  place  at  Badajoz  and  San  Sebastian  may  be 
ascribed  to  mere  frenzy,  if  the  rest  was  due  to  more 
deliberate  wickedness  on  the  part  of  the  baser  spirits  of  the 
army. 

*  Sergeant  Donaldson,  p.  155:  he  is  speaking  of  the  last  assault 
on  Badajoz. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


UNIFORMS  AND  WEAPONS 

Without  going  into  the  niceties  of  regimental  detail,  which 
were  fully  developed  by  1809,  it  is  necessary  to  give  a  certain 
attention  to  the  dress  of  the  army — we  might  almost  add, 
to  its  occasional  want  of  dress. 

The  Peninsular  Army  was  fortunate  in  having  started 
just  late  enough  to  be  rid  of  the  worst  of  the  unpractical 
clothing — the  legacy  of  the  eighteenth  century — which  had 
afflicted  the  troops  of  the  earlier  years  of  the  war.  The  odd 
hat,  shaped  something  like  a  civilian  beaver,  with  a  shaving- 
brush  at  the  side,  which  had  been  worn  in  Holland  and 
Egypt,  had  just  been  superseded  for  the  rank  and  file  by 
a  light  felt  shako,  with  brass  plate  in  front,*  and  a  woollen 
tuft  with  the  regimental  colours  (worn  sometimes  in  front, 
sometimes  at  the  side),  and  ornamented  with  white  loops 
and  tassels.t  This  was  a  light  headdress,  compared  with 
what  had  gone  before,  and  no  less  with  the  heavy,  bell- 
topped  leather  shakos  that  were  to  come  after.  Wellington 
protested  against  an  early  attempt  to  introduce  these, 
saying  that  he  always  knew  his  own  troops  at  a  distance, 
even  when  great-coated,  by  the  fact  that  their  shakos  were 
narrower  at  the  crown  than  the  base,  while  the  French 
headgear  was  always  bell-topped,  swelling  out  from  the 
bottom  to  the  crown,  and  the  distinction  was  useful.  The 

*  Instead  of  the  brass  plate  with  regimental  badge  or  number, 
the  Light  infantry  and  rifles  had  only  a  bugle-horn. 

t  Light  infantry  had  a  small  green  tuft  on  the  front  of  the 
shako ;  regiments  of  the  rest  of  the  line  a  larger  upright  plume 
fixed  on  the  side. 


Concerning  Head-Gear 


293 


felt  shako  had  a  peak  to  protect  the  eyes  from  tiie  sun,  and 
a  chin-strap.  It  was  a  serviceable  head-dress,  whose  only 
fault  was  that,  after  long  wear,  and  exposure  to  much  rain, 
the  felt  became  soft  and  might  crease  or  bulge,  and  then 
dry  into  unsightly  and  lop-sided  shapes.* 

Down  to  1811,  officers  of  the  line,  except  in  rifle  and 
light  infantry  corps,  were  wearing  cocked  hats,  as  had  been 
the  custom  since  the  eighteenth  century.  The  new  clothing 
which  came  out  in  1812  had  shakos  (of  a  more  ornamental 
sort)  for  officers  as  well  as  men.  The  very  sensible  reason  for 
the  change  was  that  obvious  difference  in  dress  between 
commissioned  and  non-commissioned  ranks  enabled  the 
enemy’s  marksmen  to  single  out  the  officers,  and  to  give 
them  more  than  their  fair  share  of  bullets.  The  discarded 
cocked  hat  had  been  a  stupid  survival — a  “  burlesque  of  a 
chapeau  usually  topped  by  some  extraordinary-looking 
feather,”  says  one  wearer  of  it,  while  others  wore  it  without 
any  feather  at  all.  The  “  cut-down  ”  hat,  exactly  a  span  in 
height,  was  all  the  rage  in  the  Lines  of  Torres  Vedras  during 
the  winter  of  1810-11. f  The  felt  shako  was  an  enormous 
improvement  in  every  way.  After  1811,  only  generals  and 
staff  officers,  engineers,  doctors,  commissaries,  and  drum- 
majors  retained  the  cocked  hat.  The  last  case  that  I 
remember  of  its  being  used  in  the  line  was  that  of  Lieutenant 
Maguire,  of  the  4th,  who,  leading  the  “  forlorn  hope  ”  at  the 
storm  of  San  Sebastian  (Aug.,  1813)  put  on  a  cocked  hat 
with  a  white  feather  “  to  make  himself  conspicuous  and 
recognizable.”  Clearly  this  headdress  was  by  that  date 
wholly  abnormal.  J 

Another  evil  which  the  Peninsular  Army  escaped  also 
belonged  to  the  head.  Pigtails  and  hair-powder  went  out 
in  1808 — an  immense  boon.  As  one  who  had  endured  them 

*  Cooke  of  the  43rd  says  (in  his  Narrative  of  Events  in  the  South 
of  France,  p.  67)  that  “distorted  by  alternate  rain  and  sunshine, 
as  well  as  by  having  served  as  pillows  and  nightcaps,  our  caps  had 
assumed  the  most  monstrous  and  grotesquo  shapes.’’ 

t  Grattan’s  Connaught  Rangers,  p.  51. 

+  See  Loslie’s  edition  of  the  Dickson  Papers,  ii.  p.  904. 


294 


Uniforms  and  Weapons 


says,  “The  hair  required  to  be  soaped,  floured,  and  frizzed, 
in  order  to  be  tortured  into  an  uncouth  shape,  which  gave 
the  man  acute  pain,  and  robbed  him  of  the  power  of  turning 
his  head  easily,  unless  he  brought  his  body  round  with  it.” 
The  grease  and  flour  matted  the  hair,  and  inclined  towards 
all  sorts  of  scalp  diseases.  Wellington,  who  had  discarded 
hair-powder  and  dressing  long  before  most  officers,*  must 
have  been  rejoiced  when  it  became  legally  permissible  to 
do  -without  it  in  all  ranks.  It  was  not  every  one  who  agreed 
with  him — a  few  old-fashioned  men  still  wore  pigtails  and 
powder  for  some  time  in  the  Peninsula  ;  but  they  soon 
died  out. 

In  the  same  year,  1808,  that  these  monstrosities  vanished 
another  affliction  was  relieved.  Trousers  of  a  blue-grey 
colour  were  substituted  for  breeches  and  gaiters,  as  service 
dress,  just  before  the  first  brigades  sailed,  in  1808.  The 
many-buttoned  gaiters  to  the  knee  had  been  an  intolerable 
nuisance ;  there  was  every  temptation  not  to  strip  them 
off  at  all,  when  it  took  twelve  minutes  to  button  them  up 
efficiently,  more  if  they  were  wet  through.  Hence  troops 
liable  to  be  alarmed  at  any  moment  were  tempted  not  to 
take  them  off  at  all  for  many  days,  which  led  to  uncleanli¬ 
ness  and  diseases  in  the  legs.  Trousers  were  a  great  im¬ 
provement — they  were  less  tight,  and  could  be  easily  slipped 
into  and  out  of.  Under  the  trousers  short  boots  (often 
called  shoes)  were  worn. 

The  coat  for  all  ranks  in  the  infantry  was  cut  short  in 
front,  and  had  fairly  small  tails ;  it  still  preserved,  more  or 
less,  the  late  eighteenth  century  cut  in  this  respect,  but 
differed  from  the  earlier  type  in  having  the  stiff  upstanding 
collar  supported  by  a  leather  stock,  an  evil  device  which 
constricted  the  neck  and  tended  to  apoplexy.  On  hard 
service,  such  as  storming  parties,  the  men  unbuttoned  their 

*  Memoirs  of  Captain  Ellers,  p.  124  (dealing  with  the  year  1800). 
“He  never  wore  powder  though  it  was  the  regulation  to  do  so.  His 
hair  was  cropped  close.  I  have  heard  him  say  that  hair  powder 
was  very  prejudicial  to  the  health,  as  impeding  perspiration,  and  he 
was  no  doubt  right.” 


The  Regimental  Coat 


295 


collars  and  threw  their  stocks  aside.*  The  most  character¬ 
istic  point  that  strikes  the  eye  in  pictures  of  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  Peninsular  period  is  the  series  of  white  stripes 
across  the  front  of  the  coat,  caused  by  the  ornamental 
prolongation  of  the  button  guards.  Bayonet  and  cartouche 
box  were  supported  by  the  broad  white  leather  cross-belts, 
ornamented  with  a  brass  plate  -with  the  regimental  badge. 
The  very  heavy  knapsack,  normally  of  oilskin  or  glazed 
canvas,  was  supported  by  a  separate  attachment  of  straps 
passing  under  the  arm-pits.  The  whole  kit  weighed  some 
sixty  pounds,  when  the  canteen  and  haversack  are  taken 
into  consideration.  Officers  had  only  a  single  leather  belt 
coming  from  the  right  shoulder  to  the  left  hip,  to  sustain  the 
sword,  and  wore  their  red  silk  sashes  girt  tight,  in  several 
turns  around  their  waists. 

One  of  Wellington’s  most  sensible  traits  was  an  intense 
dislike  of  worrying  officers  or  men  about  details  of  uniform 
on  active  service.  “  Provided  we  brought  our  men  into  the 
field  well  appointed,”  says  Grattan  of  the  88th,  “  with  their 
sixty  rounds  of  ammunition  each,  he  never  looked  to  see 
whether  trousers  were  black,  blue,  or  grey  :  and  as  to 
ourselves,  we  might  be  rigged  out  in  any  colour  of  the  rain¬ 
bow  if  we  fancied  it.  The  consequence  was  that  scarcely 
any  two  officers  were  dressed  alike  !  Some  wore  grey 
braided  coats,  others  brown  :  some  again  liked  blue  ;  many 
(from  choice,  or  perhaps  necessity)  stuck  to  the  “  old  red 
rag.”  Some  wore  long-skirted  frock-coats,  as  better 
protection  to  the  loins  than  the  orthodox  regimental  cut. 
There  are  some  curious  records  of  the  odd  clothing  in  which 
officers  finished  a  campaign.  One  records  that  he  did  the 
Burgos  retreat  in  a  garment  improvised  from  the  cassock 
of  a  priest,  slit  up  and  cut  short  and  furnished  with  buttons. 
Another,  a  captain  in  the  29th,  landing  in  Great  Britain  in 
a  braided  pelisse  and  a  fancy  waistcoat  with  silver  buttons 
of  Spanish  filigree  work,  was  taken  for  some  sort  of  French 

*  See  for  oxample  the  description  of  the  43rd  preparing  to  storm 
ltodrigo,  in  Grattan,  p.  145. 


206 


Uniforms  and  Weapons 


prisoner  by  a  worthy  general,  who  congratulated  him  on 
being  allowed  such  freedom  in  the  place  of  his  captivity.* 
As  to  the  men,  they  wore  anything  that  could  be  got :  a 
quantity  of  French  trousers  found  at  the  capture  of  Madrid, 
in  the  Retiro  fort,  were  issued  to  some  corps.  A  more  rough 
expedient  was  that  of  a  colonel  with  a  very  ragged  regiment 
in  the  winter  of  1813-14,  who  allowed  blankets  to  be  cut 
up  by  the  regimental  tailors,  to  make  up  into  trousers  for 
such  of  the  men  as  were  absolutely  disreputable  in  appear¬ 
ance.  The  battalion  made  some  sensation  when  it  marched 
into  Mont-de-Marsan  a  few  days  later. | 

All  this  did  not  vex  Wellington’s  soul  in  the  least— from 
Picton’s  tall  beaver  hat  to  the  blanket-trousers,  he  saw  and 
disregarded  every  detail.  He  himself  was  the  most  simply 
dressed  man  in  the  army,  with  his  small  cocked  hat  unorna¬ 
mented  save  by  the  English  and  Portuguese  cockades,  his 
blue,  tight-buttoned  frock-coat,  and  the  short  cloak  with 
cape  which  has  been  immortalized  by  a  score  of  statues  and 
pictures. 

I  ought,  perhaps,  to  mention  that  the  winter-clothing 
for  the  infantry  was  a  grey  pepper-and-salt  coloured  great 
coat,  of  very  thick  cloth,  with  a  cape  reaching  down  to 
nearly  the  elbow,  so  as  to  give  a  double  thickness  of  pro¬ 
tection  to  the  shoulders.  There  was  also  an  oilskin  cover 
to  the  felt  shako,  which  could  not  always  be  easily  adjusted 
to  the  latter,  when  it  had  got  distorted  in  shape  from  much 
wear.  Plate  No.  8  gives  an  illustration  of  this  costume. 

When  the  Peninsular  Army  first  started  on  its  campaigns, 
the  heavy  dragoons  were  the  most  archaic-looking  corps  in 
it,  for  they  still  wore  the  broad  and  heavy  cocked  hats, 
which  had  prevailed  in  all  armies  during  the  middle  years 
of  George  III.,  and  jack  boots  up  to  the  knee.  This  head- 
gear,  which  after  a  single  campaign  in  the  tropical  rains  of 
the  Peninsula  always  became  sodden  and  shapeless,  and 
hung  down  limply  towards  the  shoulders,  was  fortunately 

*  Military  Journal  of  Col.  Leslie  of  Balquhain,  p.  229. 

f  Memoirs  of  Captain  Cooke,  ii.  p.  76. 


PLATE  VIII. 


Sergeant  and  Private  of  Infantry  in  Winter  Marching  Order. 

1813. 


Cavalry  Uniforms 


297 


abolished  by  a  royal  warrant  of  August,  1812,  and  during 
the  following  winter  many  of  the  heavy  dragoon  regiments 
received  brass  helmets  of  a  classical  shape,  with  a  crest  and 
plume,  which,  though  rather  heavy,  were  an  immense 
improvement  on  their  former  shapeless  hats.  At  the  same 
time  they  were  given  instead  of  jack-boots  (which  had  made 
skirmishing  on  foot  almost  impossible)  grey  cloth  overalls, 
with  a  broad  red  stripe,  and  short  boots.  This  was  the 
dress  of  the  heavies  in  1813-14  and  during  the  Waterloo 
campaign. 

The  light  dragoons  had  gone  to  the  Peninsula  in  1808 
with  the  black  japanned  helmet  with  a  bearskin  crest 
along  its  crown,  which  had  been  in  use  since  the  time 
of  the  American  War.  With  it  they  wore  blue  coats 
with  white  froggings,  and  buckskin  breeches  with  Hessian 
boots.  The  general  effect  was  handsome,  and  in  use  the 
dress  was  not  unpractical.  General  Foy  mentions  it  with 
approval  in  his  history.  The  French  outposts  were  much 
puzzled  when,  at  the  commencement  of  the  Vittoria  cam¬ 
paign,  the  English  vedettes  and  outposts  appeared  in  a  new 
uniform,  which  was  introduced  for  light  cavalry  at  the  same 
time  as  the  changes  made  for  heavy  cavalry  just  mentioned 
above.  It  was  at  first  suspected  that  new  regiments  had 
been  joining  from  England.  The  1813  uniform  substituted, 
for  the  black  helmet  with  fur,  a  shako  with  a  small  upright 
plume,  slightly  bell-topped  in  shape,  and  with  ornamental 
cord  and  tassels.  It  looks  as  if  it  had  been  suggested  by  the 
head-dress  of  the  French  chasseurs  a  clieval,  and  was  much 
too  like  it  to  please  Wellington.  At  the  same  time  the  blue 
jacket  barred  with  white  lace  was  changed  for  a  blue  coat, 
with  a  very  broad  plastron  of  the  colour  of  the  regimental 
facings  in  front,  extending  from  collar  to  waist,  and  the 
buckskin  breeches  were  replaced  by  tight-fitting  breeches 
of  webbing.  This  was  the  Waterloo  uniform  of  all  light 
dragoon  regiments. 

The  large  majority  of  the  British  cavalry  regiments  in 
the  Peninsula  were  light  dragoons  :  for  the  first  three  years  of 


298 


Uniforms  and  Weapons 


Wellington's  command  there  were  only  three  heavy  dragoon 
regiments  in  the  field,  and  no  British  hussars.  Of  the  latter, 
a  new  introduction  in  the  national  Army,  there  was  one 
brigade  present  in  1808  during  Sir  John  Moore’s  operations,* 
and  the  same  regiments  came  out  in  1813,  to  see  the  last 
year  of  the  war.  j  During  the  greater  part  of  Wellington’s 
campaigns  the  only  hussars  present  with  the  army  were 
Hanoverians,  the  very  efficient  corps  belonging  to  the  King’s 
German  Legion.  The  fantastic  hussar  uniform  of  the 
period,  a  development  from  a  much  simpler  Hungarian 
original,  is  well  known.  Over  a  jacket  fitting  tight  to  the 
body,  was  worn  the  furred  and  braided  pelisse,  which  was 
usually  not  completely  put  on,  but  flung  back,  so  as  to  hang 
over  the  left  shoulder.  It  flapped  behind,  and  was  a 
hindrance  rather  than  a  covering.  On  the  legs  long  overalls 
were  worn.  The  head-dress  was  a  very  large  fur  cap,  or,  as 
it  would  have  been  called  later,  a  busby.  I  find  very  severe 
criticisms  on  this  head-gear.  One  officer  says,  “  These 
flimsy,  muff -like  appendages  encumber  the  heads  of  our 
soldiers.  The  awkward  cap,  being  constructed  partly  of 
pasteboard,  soaks  up  a  great  quantity  of  wet  during  the 
violent  rains  of  this  country,  and  so  becomes  unbearably 
heavy  and  disagreeable,  while  it  affords  no  protection  to 
the  wearer.  At  all  times  it  can  be  cut  down  to  his  skull 
with  the  greatest  ease.”  £  The  cause  of  its  adoption  seems 
to  have  been  rather  the  Prince  Regent’s  eye  for  splendour 
in  military  costume  than  anything  else.  For  strength  and 
protection,  no  less  than  comfort,  the  light  helmet  of  the 
early  dragoons  was  universally  preferred  by  critics.  Later 
improvements  made  the  busby  more  solid  and  less  heavy, 
but  in  1808  it  was  evidently  a  most  unsatisfactory  head¬ 
dress. 

Artillery  uniform  may  be  described  in  a  few  words. 

*  7th,  10th,  15th  Hussars.  The  18th  were  still  called  Light 
Dragoons  in  1808. 

t  In  April,  1813,  10th,  15th,  18th  Hussars,  the  7th  Hussars 
followed  in  September  of  the  same  year. 

J  Ker-Porter’s  Letters  from  Portugal  and  Spain,  1808—9,  p.  219. 


x\rtillery  Uniforms 


299 


That  of  the  horse  artillery  was  a  close  copy  of  that  of  the 
original  light  dragoon — black  japanned  helmet  with  fur 
crest,  blue  jacket  laced  with  gold  (instead  of  the  dragoon’s 
silver)  and  buckskin  breeches.  Field  artillery,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  clothed  almost  exactly  like  infantry  of  the  line, 
save  that  their  coats  were  blue  instead  of  red.  Their  tall 
felt  shako  and  tuft,  trousers,  and  coat  with  white  stripes, 
were  exactly  similar  to  those  of  the  linesmen.  Engineer 
officers  wore  a  dress  like  that  of  line  officers  before  the 
shako  came  in,  having  a  cocked  hat  down  to  the  end  of  the 
war,  and  trousers.  The  rank  and  file  of  that  department — 
Royal  Military  Artificers  down  to  1812,*  Royal  Sappers  and 
Miners  after — had  shako  and  blue  coat  down  to  1813,  but 
changed  the  latter  for  a  red  coat,  like  that  of  the  line,  in  the 
last-named  year.  It  was  braided  with  yellow  across  the 
front  instead  of  white,  the  only  practical  difference  in 
appearance. 

Doctors  and  commissaries  down  to  the  end  of  the  war 
were  wearing  a  cocked  hat,  like  that  of  a  general  or  a  staff 
officer.  Hence  some  queer  mistakes,  when  these  peaceful 
gentlemen  were  mistaken  for  combatant  officers,  the  colour 
of  their  plume,  the  one  differentiating  point,  failing  to  be 
observed  in  the  dusk  or  in  dirty  weather.  It  is  said  that 
some  young  commissaries  were  prone  to  pass  themselves 
off  as  staff  officers  on  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  peasantry, 
and  even  on  local  authorities.  A  ridiculous  anecdote  is 
told  of  Doctor  Maurice  Quill,  the  surgeon  of  the  Connaught 
Rangers,  who  was  the  best-known  humorist  in  the  army.f 
A  general,  who  caught  a  glimpse  of  his  cocked  hat  behind  a 


*  The  Royal  Military  Artificers  were  wearing  in  the  early  years 
of  the  century  a  most  extraordinary  and  ugly  head-dress,  a  tall 
top-hat  with  brim,  looking  more  fit  for  civilian’s  wear,  and  having 
nothing  military  about  it  except  tho  “  shaving-brush  ”  stuck  at  one 
side.  It  was  not  unlike,  however,  the  hat  of  the  Marines.  For 
illustration  of  it  see  the  plates  in  Connolly’s  History  of  the  Royal 
Sappers  and  Miners,  vol.  i. 

f  There  are  plenty  of  stories  about  him  in  Grattan’s  With  the, 
Connaught  Rangers.  This  one,  however,  is  from  Bell’s  Rough  Notes, 
i.  95. 


300 


Uniforms  and  Weapons 


hedge,  took  him  for  a  staff-officer  shirking,  and  hunted  him 
for  some  time  from  cover  to  cover,  the  doctor  meanwhile 
shouting  back  to  him,  “  I’m  off  ;  seen  plenty  of  fighting  for 
one  day.”  It  was  only  when  he  took  refuge  with  his  mules 
and  medical  panniers,  that  his  irate  pursuer  discovered  that 
he  was  not  a  combatant  officer.  Other  wearers  of  the  cocked 
hat  were  the  drum-majors  of  the  line,  who  are  said  to  have 
had  much  adulation  paid  to  them  by  the  country-folk, 
because  of  their  enormous  gold-laced  head-dress  and  lavish 
display  of  braiding,  which  caused  them  to  be  taken  for 
brigadiers  at  the  least. 

The  most  distinctive  infantry  uniform  in  the  whole 
army  was  that  of  the  rifle  battalions,  whose  sombre  colours 
contrasted  in  the  most  marked  way  with  the  red  of  the 
British  and  the  bright  blue  of  the  Portuguese  line. 
The  dress  of  the  5/60th  and  the  two  light  battalions  of 
the  K.G.L.  differed  from  that  of  the  three  battalions  of  the 
95th,  in  that  while  both  wore  the  dark  rifle-green  jacket, 
the  three  German  units  had  grey-blue  trousers  not  unlike 
those  of  the  line,  while  the  latter  were  in  green  from  head 
to  foot.  All  wore  black  shakos  of  a  high  shape,  like  those 
of  other  regiments,  and  with  a  green  tuft  or  ball  at  the 
front.  The  accoutrements  were  all  black,  in  order  to  avoid 
the  showing  of  light  or  shining  points  on  the  body,  when  the 
men  were  dispersed  in  skirmishing.  In  the  head-dress  of 
the  officers  there  was  a  certain  variety,  the  5/60th  and  1st 
Light  battalion  K.G.L.  having  a  tall  shako  similar  to  that 
of  their  rank  and  file,  while  those  of  the  95th  and  the 
2nd  Light  battalion  K.G.L.  had  a  peculiar  head-dress, 
something  like  that  of  an  eighteenth-century  hussar ;  it  was 
a  tall,  narrow  cap,  much  adorned  with  diagonal  twists  of 
braid,  and  destitute  of  the  peak  to  shade  the  eyes  which 
formed  part  of  the  normal  shako  ;  it  had  a  green  tuft  at 
the  front.  The  95th  officers  for  some  time  wore  over  their 
tight  jackets  a  black  furred  and  braided  pelisse,  in  the 
hussar  style — surely  a  most  absurd  and  inconvenient 
encumbrance  for  men  who  were  continually  scrambling 


"  Brown  Bess  ” 


301 


through  hedges,  and  working  among  thick  brushwood. 
When  thrown  back,  as  it  seems  generally  to  have  been,  it 
must  have  caught  in  every  possible  twig.  The  officers’ 
jackets  were  distinguished  from  the  plain-breasted  coat  of 
the  rank  and  file  by  having  a  great  quantity  of  narrow 
braiding  across  the  front :  they  all  wore  falling  “  wings,” 
instead  of  epaulettes.  The  Portuguese  ca9ador  uniform, 
save  that  it  was  brown  and  not  bottle-green,  reproduced 
very  closely  the  cut  and  form  of  that  of  the  5/60th. 

A  word  as  to  armament  naturally  follows  on  notes  con¬ 
cerning  uniform.  The  weapon  that  mainly  won  the 
Peninsular  victories  was  the  “  Tower  musket  ”  of  the  line 
battalions,  the  famous  “  Brown  Bess.”  It  was  a  heavy 
flint-lock,  fitted  with  a  pan,  and  weighing  about  nine 
pounds.  Its  effective  range  was  about  300  yards,  but  no 
accurate  shooting  could  be  relied  upon  at  any  range  over 
100.  Indeed,  the  man  who  could  hit  an  individual  at  that 
distance  must  not  only  have  been  a  good  shot,  but  have 
possessed  a  firelock  of  over  average  quality.  Compared 
with  the  rifle,  already  a  weapon  of  precision,  it  was  but  a 
haphazard  sort  of  arm.  At  any  distance  over  the  100 
yards  the  firing-line  relied  upon  the  general  effect  of  the 
volley  that  it  gave,  rather  than  on  the  shooting  of  each  man. 
Nevertheless,  the  British  musket  was  decidedly  a  stronger, 
better  made  and  more  accurate  weapon  than  that  used  by 
Continental  armies,  and  was  much  preferred  by  our  Spanish 
and  Portuguese  allies  to  those  of  their  own  manufacture. 
Its  calibre  was  sixteen,  its  missile  was  a  round  leaden  bullet 
(a  little  heavier  than  the  French  ball,  whose  weight  was 
twenty  to  the  pound),  and  made  up  with  a  stout  paper 
cartridge,  of  which  each  man  normally  carried  sixty.  In 
order  to  secure  certain  ignition  by  the  snapping  of  the  flint, 
the  butt-end  of  the  cartridge  had  to  be  torn  open  by  the 
teeth,  before  it  was  placed  in  the  musket  barrel,  and  a  splash 
of  powder  had  to  be  thrown  into  the  pan  to  catch  the 
spark  and  communicate  it  to  the  cartridge.  The  latter 


302 


Uniforms  and  Weapons 


was  driven  down  the  barrel  by  an  iron  ramrod.  Raw 
recruits  in  a  moment  of  excitement,  firing  too  fast,  are  said 
not  infrequently  to  have  forgotten  to  withdraw  the  ramrod 
after  loading,  and  to  have  shot  it  away — which  left  them 
helpless. 

The  greatest  hindrance  to  good  musketry  was  wet. 
Long-continued  rain  might  penetrate  the  cartouch  box,  and 
damp  all  the  powder,  so  that  every  cartridge  missed  fire.  But 
even  a  sudden  heavy  squall  might  drench  the  particular 
cartridge  that  was  being  handled,  and  make  its  torn-open 
end  incapable  of  ignition.  Or  it  might  wash  the  priming- 
powder  out  of  the  pan,  or  damp  it  into  a  paste,  so  that  it 
could  not  catch  fire.  In  either  case,  infantry  fighting  in  a 
rainstorm  could  not  count  on  any  certain  fire-effect ;  not 
one  shot  in  four  might  go  off,  and  troops  surprised  in  open 
order  by  cavalry  would  be  very  helpless.  Their  only 
chance  of  salvation  would  be  to  form  square  and  trust  to 
the  defensive  power  of  the  bayonet.  The  latter  weapon 
was  long,  triangular,  and  rather  heavy  ;  its  weight  did  not 
make  accurate  shooting  easier,  when  it  was  fixed. 

There  was  a  somewhat  lighter  and  more  carefully  made 
weapon  for  light  infantry  battalions,  called  the  fight  infantry 
musket ;  except  that  its  sights  were  more  accurately  seen 
to,  and  that  its  length  was  slightly  less,  I  cannot  find  that 
it  greatly  differed  from  the  normal  Tower  musket.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  fusil,  which  was  an  older  type  of 
fight  musket,  which  had  originally  given  its  name  to  all 
fusiliers.  The  last  time  that  it  occurs  in  use,  was  when  it 
was  given  during  the  latter  years  of  the  war  to  the  experi¬ 
mental  home  battalions,  into  which  boys  under  seventeen 
were  drafted.  To  suit  their  short  stature  and  younger 
muscles,  fusils  instead  of  full-sized  muskets  were  served  out 
to  them. 

Quite  different  from  all  muskets  were  the  rifles  served 
out  to  the  5/6Gth,  the  95th,  and  the  Light  Battalions  of  the 
K.G.L.  The  pattern  was  called  the  Baker  rifle,  from 
its  inventor.  It  was  a  short  weapon  with  a  barrel  two  and  a 


The  Baker  Rifle 


303 


half  feet  long,  furnished  with  seven  grooves  within,  which 
made  a  quarter-turn  in  the  length  of  the  barrel.  Its  calibre 
was  a  twenty  bore,  and  it  was  stiff  to  load.  An  interesting 
letter  from  one  of  the  majors  of  the  5/60th  to  the  assistant 
adjutant-general  at  Cork,  written  just  before  the  battalion 
sailed  for  Portugal,  makes  a  demand  for  450  small  mallets, 
for  the  purpose  of  forcing  the  bullet  down  the  barrel. 
“  They  should  be  made  of  hard  wood,  with  a  handle  about 
six  inches  long,  pierced  with  a  hole  at  the  extremity  for 
fastening  a  string  to  it.”  Major  Davy  adds  that  “  the 
instrument  is  absolutely  necessary,”  and  a  mallet  for  every 
two  men  should  be  furnished.*  These  tools,  however,  were 
in  use  only  for  a  few  months,  were  found  not  indispensable, 
and  were  finally  withdrawn.  But  to  ram  the  ball  home  was 
always  a  hard  job,  owing  to  the  grooves.  The  rifleman 
carried  no  bayonet,  his  second  weapon  being  a  very  short 
and  curved  sword,  more  useful  for  wood-chopping  than 
anything  else. 

Sergeants  were  not  yet  armed  like  the  rank  and  file, 
except  in  the  rifle  battalions,  where  they  carried  the  normal 
weapon  of  the  “  Baker  ”  type.  In  the  Guards  and  line 
alike  they  had  a  seven-foot  spear  with  a  cross-piece  below 
the  head,  to  prevent  over-penetration  after  a  thrust,  j  The 
names  of  pike  and  halberd  were  used  for  it  indifferently, 
though  the  former  was  the  more  correct,  the  original 
halberd  having  been  a  cut-and-thrust  weapon  with  an 
edge  as  well  as  a  point.  In  addition,  the  sergeant  carried 
a  brass-hilted  sword  at  his  left  side.  I  have  never  found 
any  mention  of  its  being  used,  the  halberd  being  always  the 
preferred  weapon — though  in  action  a  sergeant  often  picked 
up  a  dead  man’s  musket,  and  joined  in  the  firing.  J  But, 

*  See  the  letter  in  General  Rigaud’s  History  of  the  5/6C )th. 

f  See  illustration  in  Plate  8  of  a  sergeant  and  private  in  winter 
marching  order. 

X  There  is  a  curious  anecdote  in  the  diary  (p.  28)  of  Cooper  of 
the  l/7th,  of  a  sergeant,  who,  running  with  the  point  of  his  pike  low, 
caught  it  in  the  ground,  and  fell  forward  on  its  butt-end,  which 
went  right  through  his  body. 


304 


Uniforms  and  Weapons 


en  revanche,  I  have  found  a  confession  by  a  newly  made 
sergeant  of  his  having  caught  it  between  his  legs,  and  had  a 
nasty  fall,  on  his  first  appearance  with  the  three  stripes. 
The  weapon  was  slightly  curved,  and  meant  for  cutting 
rather  than  thrusting. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  infantry  officer’s  sword  was  quite 
straight  and  rather  light,  a  thrusting  weapon  essentially. 
There  are  many  complaints  that  it  was  too  slight  for  its 
work — e.g.  it  had  no  chance  against  a  French  cavalry 
sword,  which  would  always  batter  it  down,  when  the  two 
clashed  in  stroke  and  parry.  I  have  found  it  called  a 
“  toasting-fork,”  and  other  insulting  names.  Many  officers 
provided  themselves  with  foreign  weapons  of  a  heavier 
make,  and  better  adapted  for  cutting  ;  no  objection  was 
made  to  this  departure  from  the  regulations.  Mounted  and 
staff  officers  carried  a  different  sword — a  curved  broad- 
bladed  sabre,  of  the  type  of  that  used  by  light  cavalry. 
Rifle  officers  also  used  a  curved  sabre,  of  a  rather  short 
make,  and  not  the  straight  infantry  sword. 

Heavy  cavalry  used  the  broad-sword  with  steel  hilt  and 
guard,  straight  and  very  heavy.  It  could  be  used  for  the 
thrust  as  well  as  for  the  cut,  but  it  would  seem  that  the 
British  dragoons  (unlike  the  French  cuirassiers)  always 
preferred  the  edge  to  the  point.  The  sabre  of  the  light 
dragoon  and  the  hussar  was  a  markedly  curved  weapon, 
very  broad  in  the  blade,  and  only  suitable  for  the  stroke, 
though  very  occasionally  we  hear  of  a  thrust  being  made.* 
From  the  enormous  proportion  of  wounded  to  killed  in 
engagements  where  the  French  and  English  light  cavalry 
met,  it  is  clear  that  the  sabres  of  both  sides  were  better  suited 
to  maim  than  to  slay.  The  thrusting  sword  of  the  cuirassiers 
had  a  much  more  terrible  reputation. 

The  rank  and  file  of  the  Royal  Sappers  and  Miners 
carried  muskets  and  bayonets  like  infantry  of  the  line,  and 

*  E.g.  there  is  a  Waterloo  story  of  a  sergeant  of  the  18th 
Hussars,  who  long  engaged  with  a  cuirassier,  and  unable  to  get  at 
him  because  of  his  armour  and  helm,  ultimately  killed  him  with  a 
thrust  in  the  mouth.  I  should  not  like  to  take  it  as  certain. 


Regimental  Colours 


305 


their  sergeants  the  regulation  halberd.  Horse  artillery 
gunners  had  sabres  of  the  light  dragoon  type:  but  field 
artillery  only  very  short  curved  swords,  like  those  of  the 
rifle  regiments.  The  drivers,  who  were  organized  as  a 
separate  corps,  had  no  weapons  at  all,  in  order  that  their 
attention  might  not  be  distracted  from  their  horses.  This 
seems  to  have  been  a  very  doubtful  expedient,  leaving  them 
absolutely  helpless  if  attacked  by  hostile  cavalry.  It  may 
have  originated  from  the  fact  that  the  driver,  far  into  the 
eighteenth  century,  had  not  been  a  soldier  at  all,  but  a 
“  waggoner,”  a  civilian  without  uniform  or  arms.  It  was 
only  in  1794  that  the  corps  of  Artillery  Drivers  was  formed 
upon  this  rather  unpromising  basis. 

This  is  probably  the  place  in  which  mention  should  be 
made  of  the  standards  under  which  the  army  fought.* 
Cavalry  banners  or  guidons  had  just  gone  out — if  used  at 
all  in  the  Peninsular  War,  it  was  only  in  its  first  year. 
Reports  from  the  later  years  show  that  all  regiments  had 
left  them  either  at  their  depot  in  England,  or  in  some  cases 
at  Lisbon.  But  infantry  regiments,  with  few  exceptions, 
took  their  flags  into  the  field,  as  was  the  custom  with  their 
successors  down  to  the  last  generation.  It  was  only  in  the 
1880’s  that  they  finally  ceased  to  be  displayed  on  active 
service.  The  Rifles,  always  destined  to  fight  in  extended 
order,  never  had  colours,  and  the  regimental  annals  of 
some  Light  Infantry  corps  (the  68th  and  71st)  show  that 
for  similar  reasons  they  had  left  their  standards  behind  in 
England.  But  this  was  not  the  case  with  all  Light  Infantry  : 
the  famous  43rd  and  52nd  carried  them  all  through  the  war. 

Of  the  two  battalion  colours  the  one  or  “  King’s  Colour  ” 
was  a  large  Union  Jack,  with  the  regiment’s  number  on  a 
shield  or  medallion,  often  encompassed  with  a  wreath,  and 
sometimes  also  with  the  badge  of  the  corps,  when  such 
existed.  The  second  or  Regimental  colour  was  of  the  same 
hue  as  the  facings  of  the  corps,  and  only  had  a  small  Union 

*  For  ample  details  about  them  see  Mr.  Milne’s  Standards  and 
Colours  of  the  Army,  Leeds,  1893. 


X 


306 


Uniforms  and  Weapons 


Jack  in  its  upper  left  corner,  next  the  pole.  On  the  plain 
silk  of  the  main  surface  of  the  flag  were  disposed  the  number 
of  the  regiment,  often  in  a  wreath,  and  its  badges  and 
battle-honours,  where  such  existed.  Since  facings  had 
many  hues,  the  main  effect  of  the  two  flags  was  very 
different,  the  large  Union  Jack  of  the  King’s  Colour  being 
contrasted  with  the  yellow,  green,  crimson,  or  white,  etc., 
of  the  Regimental  Colour. 

The  colours  were  borne  in  battle  by  the  two  junior 
ensigns  of  the  battalion,  who  had  assigned  to  them  for 
protection  several  colour-sergeants.  It  was  the  duty  of 
these  non-commissioned  officers  to  take  charge  of  the  flag 
if  the  proper  bearer  were  slain  or  hurt,  and  in  many  battles 
both  colours  came  out  of  action  in  sergeants’  hands.  The 
post  of  colour-sergeant  was  honourable  but  dangerous,  for 
the  enemy’s  fire  always  beat  hardest  about  the  standards 
in  the  centre  of  the  battalion  line.  Sergeant  Lawrence  of 
the  40th  notes,  in  his  simple  diary,  that  at  Waterloo  he  was 
ordered  to  the  colours  late  in  the  day,  because  both  the 
ensigns  and  all  the  colour-sergeants  had  been  hit.  “  Though 
used  to  warfare  as  any  one,  this  was  a  job  I  did  not  like. 
There  had  been  before  me  that  day  fourteen  sergeants 
already  killed  or  wounded  around  them,  and  both  staff  and 
colours  were  almost  cut  to  pieces.”  *  This  was,  of  course, 
very  exceptional  carnage ;  but  the  posts  of  junior  ensign  and 
colour-sergeant  were  always  exceptionally  dangerous. 


*  Autobiography  of  Sergt.  Lawrence,  p.  239. 


Chapter  xiX 


THE  COMMISSARIAT 

As  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark,  when  dealing 
with  the  central  organization  of  the  Peninsular  Army, 
of  all  the  departments  which  had  their  representatives 
at  Head  Quarters  that  which  was  under  the  charge  of  the 
Commissary-General  was  the  most  important.*  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that,  when  the  long  struggle  began,  the 
whole  future  of  the  war  depended  on  whether  the  hastily 
organized  and  inexperienced  Commissariat  Department 
could  enable  Wellington  to  keep  his  army  concentrated, 
and  to  move  it  freely  in  any  direction. 

Spain  and  Portugal  are  countries  where  large  armies 
cannot  be  supplied  from  local  resources,  except  in  a  few 
favoured  districts.  Any  attempt  to  live  on  requisitions  was 
bound  to  fail  in  the  end,  as  the  French  realized  to  their 
sorrow,  after  a  long  series  of  endeavours  to  subsist  on  the 
countryside  in  the  Peninsula,  as  they  were  wont  to  do  in 
Italy  or  Germany.  Wellington  from  the  first  forbade  it, 
and  resolved  that  the  main  dependence  of  the  troops  must 
be  on  regular  stores  brought  up  from  the  base  of  operations. 
Requisitions  were  only  a  subsidiary  resource  ;  they  could 
only  be  made  by  an  authorized  commissary,  and  must  be 
paid  for  at  once.  It  was  his  misfortune  that  specie  was  often 
not  forthcoming,  and  the  payments  had  to  be  made  by 
Treasury  orders  or  other  paper,  which  the  peasants  who 
received  them  found  hard  to  negotiate.  But  payment  in 
some  form  was  always  made. 

*  See  above,  p.  161. 


308 


The  Commissariat 


At  the  best,  requisitions  were  only  a  secondary  aid,  and 
the  army  relied  for  the  staple  of  its  provisions  on  the  stores 
which  the  Commissary-General  had  to  bring  up  from  Lisbon 
or  other  bases.  This  was  a  hard  task  for  him,  when  it  is 
remembered  that  the  cross  roads  of  the  Peninsula  were 
mule-tracks,  on  which  heavy  wheeled  traffic  could  not  pass  ; 
and  that  the  army  was  often  operating  at  a  distance  of 
150  or  200  miles  from  its  depots.  Moreover,  in  1809, 
the  staff  of  the  Commissariat  had  all  their  work  to  learn — 
no  British  army  for  many  years  had  been  operating  in 
heavy  force,  and  for  many  months  on  end,  in  a  thinly- 
peopled  continental  theatre  of  war.  The  difficulty  of 
bringing  up  the  daily  food  of  the  troops  seemed  at  first 
almost  insuperable.  At  the  end  of  the  Talavera  campaign 
the  men  were  well-nigh  famished,  simply  because  the 
attempt  had  been  made  to  depend  more  than  was  possible 
on  local  resources,  to  the  neglect  of  convoys  from  the  base. 
After  this  experience  Wellington  resolved  that  he  must 
five  on  his  own  stores,  and  this  principle  was  remembered 
throughout  the  war.  Hence  the  work  which  fell  on  the 
commissariat,  in  collecting  and  forwarding  food  from  the 
base,  was  appalling.  Most  of  it  had  to  be  conveyed  by 
brigades  of  pack-mules  with  native  drivers,  who  were  hard 
to  manage  and  prone  to  desert.  The  rest  came  up  on  country 
carts — ox-waggons  for  the  most  part.  That  mistakes  and 
delays  occurred,  that  a  brigade  or  a  division  was  occasionally 
foodless  for  several  days,  and  forced  to  halt  in  the  middle 
of  a  critical  operation,  is  not  wonderful.  But  on  the  whole 
after  much  toil  and  trouble  the  Commissariat  succeeded  in 
doing  its  duty,  and  the  length  of  time  for  which  the  British 
army  could  keep  concentrated  was  the  envy  of  the  French, 
who,  living  on  the  country,  were  forced  to  disperse  when¬ 
ever  they  had  exhausted  the  resources  of  the  particular 
region  in  which  they  were  massed. 

*  All  through  the  years  1811-12  the  central  fact  in  the 
Peninsula  was  that  if  the  French  armies  of  Portugal  and 
the  North  concentrated  at  Salamanca  and  Rodrigo,  or 


All-Importance  of  Convoys 


309 


if  (on  the  other  hand)  those  of  Portugal  and  Andalusia 
joined  on  the  Guadiana,  in  the  region  of  Badajoz  and 
Merida,  the  Anglo-Portuguese  were  too  weak  to  face  the 
combination.  Wellington  had  to  abandon  the  offensive, 
and  to  seek  refuge  behind  the  Portuguese  frontier.  But 
when  he  did  so,  as  in  June,  1811,  and  again  in  September 
of  the  same  year,  he  knew  that  the  overwhelming  force 
in  front  of  him  could  not  hold  itself  together  for  more  than 
a  very  short  period  of  days.  Troops  brought  from  enormous 
distances,  and  destitute  of  any  adequate  magazines  or 
transport,  could  not  live  on  the  countryside  for  more  than 
a  limited  period.  They  were  forced  to  disperse,  in  order 
to  feed,  and  so  the  threatening  conjunction  passed,  and, 
when  the  enemy  had  drawn  apart,  the  allied  army  could 
once  more  abandon  the  defensive,  and  take  some  positive 
project  in  hand.  The  same  was  the  case  in  the  late  autumn 
of  1812,  during  the  retreat  from  Burgos.  Wellington  on  this 
occasion  had  on  his  hands  the  largest  combination  of  French 
troops  that  he  ever  faced — the  four  armies  of  Portugal, 
the  North,  the  Centre,  and  Andalusia  were  all  pressing  in 
upon  him.  It  would  have  been  hopeless  to  fight,  and  so 
retreat  was  persevered  in,  so  long  as  the  enemy  continued 
to  advance.  But  Wellington  knew  that  the  progress  of 
the  100,000  men  now  pursuing  him  must  inevitably  come 
to  an  end,  for  in  their  rapid  course  they  could  bring  no 
stores  with  them,  and  in  the  war-worn  country  between 
Salamanca  and  Rodrigo  they  could  obtain  nothing.  Where 
his  own  troops,  though  returning  toward  their  base  and 
their  depots,  were  hard  put  to  it  for  food,  the  French  must 
be  suffering  even  more.  Wherefore  he  retreated,  waiting 
for  the  inevitable  moment  when  the  pursuit  could  be  no 
longer  urged.  It  mattered  little  whether  it  stopped  at 
Salamanca,  or  a  march  or  so  beyond  (as  actually  happened), 
or  whether  it  might  get  a  little  further,  as  far  as  the  Portu¬ 
guese  frontier.  It  was  certain,  within  a  period  of  days, 
that  it  must  break  down.  Meanwhile  he  himself  was  re¬ 
treating  on  to  his  stores,  and  could  depend  upon  them  '• 


310  The  Commissariat 

after  Rodrigo  the  men  were  getting  their  full  rations  once 
more. 

The  duties  of  the  Commissariat  may  be  divided  into 
three  sections — the  first  was  the  accumulation  of  great 
masses  of  sea-borne  stores  at  the  regular  bases,  the  second 
was  the  distribution  of  those  stores  to  the  troops  at  the 
front  by  an  immense  system  of  convoys  ;  the  third  arid 
subsidiary  task  was  the  supplementing  of  these  base-stores, 
by  getting  in  what  could  be  procured  in  the  country-side, 
where  the  army  was  operating  ;  for,  of  course,  every  fanega 
or  arroba  of  food-stuff  that  could  be  obtained  at  the  front 
was  helpful.  It  had  not  to  be  carried  far,  it  saved  convoy 
work,  and  it  kept  the  magazines  at  the  base  from  depletion. 
Yet,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  what  was  got  in  the 
countryside  was  always  considered  as  the  secondary  source 
of  supply  ;  the  main  reliance  was  on  the  food-ships,  which 
poured  into  the  base-depot  of  Lisbon  corn  sought  in 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  not  only  in  such  limited  parts  of 
Europe  as  could  be  drawn  upon  in  the  days  of  the 
Continental  System,  but  in  Morocco,  Turkey  in  Asia,  and 
America. 

The  maintenance  of  the  Peninsular  War  entirely  de¬ 
pended  on  the  naval  predominance  of  Great  Britain  in  all 
seas  ;  if  the  army  of  Wellington  had  not  been  able  to  draw 
freely  on  distant  resources,  his  position  would  have  been 
little  better  than  that  of  his  French  enemies.  Hence  it 
was  that,  in  one  sense,  the  greatest  danger  that  he  ever 
incurred  was  the  American  War  of  1812-14,  which  turned 
loose  upon  his  line  of  communications,  in  the  North  Atlantic, 
many  scores  of  active  and  enterprising  privateers,  who 
did  considerable  damage  among  British  shipping,  and  for 
the  first  time  since  the  war  began  made  the  high  seas 
insecure.  But  fortunately  the  commencement  of  the 
American  War  exactly  synchronized  with  the  beginnings 
of  Napoleon’s  downfall,  and  the  struggle  in  Europe  took 
a  favourable  turn  just  as  the  peril  on  the  ocean  came  into 
being.  If  the  American  War  had  broken  out  in  1809  or 


Water  Transport  311 

1810,  its  significance  would  have  been  of  much  higher 
importance. 

The  normal  condition  of  commissariat  affairs,  during 
the  first  four  years  of  the  war,  was  that  there  were  daily 
arriving  in  Lisbon  supplies  of  all  sorts,  not  only  food  but 
clothing,  munitions,  and  weapons  of  war,  which  had  to 
be  got  forward  to  the  army  as  quickly  as  possible.  In 
the  winter  of  1810-11,  when  the  whole  of  Wellington’s 
host  lay  concentrated  behind  (or  later  in  advance  of)  the 
Lines  of  Torres  Vedras,  the  problem  was  comparatively 
simple,  as  the  troops  were  close  to  the  magazines.  But 
during  the  remainder  of  the  years  1811-12  the  British  divi¬ 
sions  were  lying  out  at  a  long  distance  from  their  base — - 
by  Guarda,  Celorico,  or  Almeida,  or  at  other  times  near 
Merida,  Campo  Mayor,  and  Portalegre.  In  1812,  when 
Wellington  moved  forward  as  far  as  Madrid  and  Burgos, 
the  elapes  between  the  base-depot  and  the  field  army 
were  even  greater. 

The  Commissary-General’s  duty  was  to  see  that  convoys 
went  regularly  to  the  front,  so  that  the  army  should  never 
be  in  want.  This  was  a  hard  business,  since  most  of  the 
transfer  had  to  be  made  on  mule-back,  and  the  rest  on  ox¬ 
carts  of  primitive  construction  and  small  capacity.  Water- 
carriage,  which  would  have  been  comparatively  easy, 
could  only  be  utilized  on  a  limited  scale  ;  the  Tagus  was 
generally  navigable  to  Abrantes,  and  when  the  main  army 
lay  in  Estremadura  this  was  a  great  help,  since  stores  could 
be  sent  up  in  barges  and  country  boats  with  much  greater 
ease  than  by  road.  When  unloaded  at  Abrantes,  they 
had  a  comparatively  short  way  to  travel  by  mule  or  ox¬ 
cart  to  Elvas  or  Portalegre.  But  usually  only  Hill’s  two 
divisions  were  on  the  Estremadura  frontier,  and  Wellington 
with  the  main  force  was  somewhere  on  the  Beira  frontier, 
in  the  direction  of  Guarda,  Sabugal,  and  the  Coa.  These 
regions  are  150  miles  or  more  from  Lisbon,  and  the  roads 
beyond  Coimbra  on  the  one  side  and  Abrantes  on  the 
other  were  rugged  and  badly  kept.  It  was  a  trying  business 


312 


The  Commissariat 


to  secure  the  constant  and  regular  forwarding  of  the  neces¬ 
sary  convoys,  and  the  return  of  beasts  and  men  to  the 
base,  when  they  had  discharged  their  loads  at  the  front. 
A  very  slight  assistance  was  got  by  using  the  river  Douro 
as  a  secondary  line  of  water  carriage — but  it  was  only  navi¬ 
gable  to  Peso  da  Regoa  near  Lamego,  which  was  so  far 
from  the  Spanish  frontier  and  the  normal  haunts  of  the 
army,  that  little  was  gained  by  sending  stores  to  Oporto 
as  a  secondary  base-depot.  In  1811  the  only  large  con¬ 
signments  forwarded  on  that  line  were  the  heavy  guns 
and  ammunition,  which  were  to  form  the  siege-train  that 
Dickson  was  organizing  at  Villa  da  Ponte,*  which  is  com¬ 
paratively  close  to  Lamego,  though  the  roads  between 
them  were  very  bad.  In  1812  Wellington’s  engineers,  by 
patient  blasting  and  dredging  in  the  bed  of  the  Douro, 
made  it  navigable  as  far  as  Castro  de  Alva,  which  is  forty 
miles  up-stream  from  Peso  da  Regoa,  and  lies  not  very 
remote  from  Almeida.  After  this  the  Douro  became  much 
more  useful  as  a  line  of  supply,  and  it  was  largely  used  for 
the  forwarding  of  stores  before  the  opening  of  the  campaign 
of  1813.  But,  just  as  it  had  become  available  on  a  better 
scale,  Wellington  started  the  great  march  to  Vittoria, 
whose  success  took  him  away  for  ever  from  Portugal. 
During  the  last  year  of  the  war  he  suddenly  shifted  his 
base,  and  made  Santander  and  Passages  his  base-ports, 
so  that  the  improvements  in  the  navigation  of  the  Douro 
were  of  no  further  utility. 

A  great  part  of  the  Commissary-General’s  staff  was  kept 
at  Lisbon,  with  a  smaller  sub-department  at  Oporto, 
receiving  from  the  ships,  unloading,  and  repacking  the 
immense  stores  that  came  to  hand.  Every  few  days  a 
convoy  started  for  the  front,  under  the  charge  of  a  deputy - 
assistant-commissary,  a  commissariat-clerk,  or  some  such 
subordinate.  It  would  usually  consist  of  a  large  drove  of 
hired  mules,  worked  by  their  owners,  who  generally  acted  to¬ 
gether  in  gangs  or  parties,  of  which  a  capataz  or  head-driver, 
*  See  p.  283, 


The  Mule-Train 


313 


chosen  by  his  comrades,  was  the  chief,  and  did  the  bar¬ 
gaining  with  the  commissariat  authorities.  The  convoy 
would  probably  consist  of  the  gangs  of  five  or  six  capatazes, 
and  would  number  many  scores  of  beasts.  The  com¬ 
missariat  official  in  charge  had  no  easy  task  to  make  the 
muleteers  get  over  a  reasonable  daily  stretch  of  road,  and 
to  see  that  they  did  not  steal  from  the  stores,  or  (what  was 
not  unknown  when  there  was  a  quarrel)  desert  with  their 
beasts.  When  the  convoy  got  near  the  front,  it  would 
have  to  be  provided  with  an  escort — generally  convalescents 
returning  to  their  battalions,  or  drafts  newly  arrived  from 
England.  But  the  escorts  were  not  an  unmixed  blessing — 
they  were  terribly  prone  to  picking  and  stealing  from  the 
stores,  with  or  without  the  connivance  of  the  muleteers. 
There  was  nearly  always  trouble  when  a  small  escort, 
without  an  officer  to  keep  his  men  in  hand,  got  associated 
with  a  mule  train.  Brawls  were  frequent  between  soldiers 
and  muleteers,  and  the  assistant-commissary  in  charge 
could  not  get  the  escort  to  obey  him  :  sergeants  looked 
upon  him  as  a  mere  civilian  in  a  cocked  hat,  who  might  be 
contemned.  Nor  was  the  task  of  such  an  unfortunate 
official  rendered  more  easy  by  the  fact  that,  owing  to  sheer 
want  of  hard  cash,  his  muleteers  were  usually  in  long  arrears 
of  their  stipulated  hire.  They  naturally  grumbled,  but  on 
the  whole  stuck  to  their  service  far  more  faithfully  than 
might  have  been  expected  ;  there  were  times  when  the 
whole  body  of  them  were  many  months  unpaid,  yet  only 
a  small  proportion  disappeared.  Probably  the  fact  that 
they  escaped  the  conscription  by  being  registered  as  autho¬ 
rized  followers  of  the  British  Army  had  something  to  do  with 
their  long-suffering  :  probably  also  real  patriotism  had  some 
share,  for  they  all  loyally  hated  the  French,  and  were  prone 
to  cut  the  throats  of  their  wounded,  if  left  unshepherded 
near  a  recent  battlefield. 

Wheeled  transport  was  much  less  satisfactory  than  the 
mule  trains  for  continuous  movement.  The  British  waggons 
sent  out  to  the  Peninsula  turned  out  to  be  quite  useless 


The  Commissariat 


314 

for  Portuguese  by-roads.  Wellington  finally  gave  up  all 
idea  of  relying  on  them  for  load-carrying,  and  mainly 
employed  them  for  his  sick  and  wounded.  A  few  of  the 
“spring  waggons  ”  (as  they  were  called  to  distinguish  them 
from  the  springless  Portuguese  vehicles)  *  were  attached 
to  each  brigade  for  the  carriage  of  invalids,  and  the  “  Royal 
Waggon  Train  ”  in  the  later  years  of  the  war  seem  to  have 
been  almost  treated  as  an  ambulance  corps.  Certainly 
the  army  would  have  been  in  evil  case,  if  it  had  been  forced 
to  rely  on  them  for  the  moving  of  its  food. 

Such  stores  as  did  move  upon  wheels,  and  not  upon 
mule-back,  were  carried  on  Portuguese  ox-waggons,  to 
which  Wellington  was  compelled  to  have  recourse  for  want 
of  better  vehicles.  These  were  very  primitive  structures 
— the  sides  of  wicker  work,  the  wheels  made  of  solid  circles 
of  wood  bounded  with  iron,  turning  axle  and  all,  which  made 
their  grinding  noise  almost  intolerable.  The  excruciating 
thrills  caused  to  the  ear  by  a  train  of  such  carts  are  mentioned 
with  disgust  by  nearly  every  Peninsular  diarist,  on  his  first 
introduction  to  life  at  the  front.  The  only  advantages 
of  ox-waggons  were  that  they  were  light,  easy  to  repair, 
and  specially  built  for  the  bad  roads  of  the  country  :  more¬ 
over,  every  peasant  knew  how  to  drive  them,  or  to  mend 
them  at  a  pinch.  Their  weak  points  were  that  they  were 
intolerably  slow — two  miles  an  hour  was  a  full  allowance — 
and  that  they  were  too  small  to  carry  much.  However, 
they  had  to  serve  for  want  of  better  vehicles — and  the 
army  could  not  have  lived  without  their  service.  An 
immense  amount  of  them  were  employed,  some  on  regular 
and  long  terms  of  hire,  as  part  of  the  permanent  transport 
of  the  army,  others  in  a  more  temporary  way,  by  requisition 
from  the  district.  These  last  were  always  difficult  to 
manage  ;  professional  muleteers  would  not  object  to  travel, 
but  impressed  peasants  loathed  quitting  their  own  district, 
fearing  that  they  might  be  taken  far  afield — perhaps  into 
Spain — before  they  were  released.  They  were  always 
*  Cf.  p.  266  above. 


Desertion  of  Drivers 


315 


trying  to  abscond  with  their  precious  bullocks,  abandoning 
the  comparatively  worthless  cart  and  its  stores.  A  picture 
of  the  sort  may  be  taken  from  Hennegan’s  lively  narrative 
of  a  march  in  1809,  when  he  had  to  take  an  unwilling 
train  of  “  embargoed  ”  waggoners  across  the  mountains  of 
Northern  Beira. 

“  Leaning  on  their  oxen  at  nightfall,  they  contemplated 
in  mute  dismay  on  one  side  the  gigantic  hill  which  they 
had  just  descended,  on  the  other  the  roaring  torrent  of  the 
Douro,  which  in  its  impetuous  course  seemed  to  threaten 
with  destruction  the  temerity  that  would  brave  its  power. 
The  Santa  Marias  of  some  were  answered  by .  the  more 
emphatic  carajos  !  of  others,  but  even  these  died  away 
before  the  necessities  of  the  moment,  and  unyoking  the 
oxen,  to  afford  them  the  shelter  of  trees,  the  drivers  spread 
their  large  cloaks  in  the  empty  sheds,  and  soon  in  sleep 
seemed  to  forget  their  disappointment.  The  poor  men, 
taken  from  their  homes  for  our  service,  risked  in  the  loss 
of  their  oxen  the  only  means  of  support  for  themselves  and 
families. 

“  The  following  morning,  however,  presented  a  curious 
scene.  There  stood  the  wains,  securely  packed,  but  looking 
as  if  the  earth  had  brought  them  forth,  for  no  vestige 
remained  of  the  means  by  which  they  had  been  brought 
to  this  lonely  spot.  The  rumour  of  the  proximity  of  the 
French  had  determined  these  Portuguese  on  sacrificing  the 
wains,  if  only  they  could  ensure  the  preservation  of  them¬ 
selves  and  oxen.  What  was  now  to  be  done  ?  ”  * 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  non-plussed  guardian  of  the 
deserted  convoy  had  to  remain  motionless  for  many  days, 
risking  the  possible  arrival  of  the  French,  till  at  last  he 
procured  boats  on  the  Douro,  and  shipped  his  charge 
down  to  Oporto.  Hennegan’s  peasants  got  away  with  their 
bullocks — he  and  his  escort  were  evidently  sleepy  and  un¬ 
suspecting  :  but  often  a  good  watch  was  kept  on  the  teams, 
and  sentries  placed  over  them.  In  such  cases,  if  the  weather 
*  Honnogan’s  Seven  Years'  Campaigning ,  i.  p.  52. 


316 


The  Commissariat 


was  bad,  or  the  French  too  near,  the  drivers  would  often 
sacrifice  even  their  loved  beasts,  and  simply  abscond 
themselves,  abandoning  their  means  of  livelihood. 

It  says  much  for  the  general  zeal  of  the  Commissariat 
Department  that,  even  with  such  difficulties  about  them, 
they  usually  succeeded  in  keeping  the  army  supplied  with 
food.  Occasionally  there  were  desperate  pinches  of  starva¬ 
tion,  when  the  army  had  out-marched  its  convoys — this, 
for  example,  happened  on  the  Alva  in  March,  1811,  when 
half  of  the  army,  in  pursuit  of  Massena,  had  to  stop  dead 
for  several  days,  because  their  rapid  advance  had  left  the 
slow-moving  mule-trains  several  marches  behind.  To  press 
the  French  would  have  been  most  profitable — but  if  the 
troops  had  gone  on,  through  the  depopulated  land  before 
them,  they  must  have  perished  of  sheer  want  of  food,  and 
Wellington  reluctantly  halted  till  the  convoys  began  to 
creep  up  to  the  front.  Another  period  of  empty  stomachs 
was  seen  during  the  retreat  from  Burgos,  from  the  opposite 
cause  ;  forced  to  give  back,  Wellington  started  his  train 
betimes  for  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  to  get  it  out  of  the  proximity 
of  the  oncoming  enemy.  Hence  the  rear  divisions,  who 
had  to  contain  the  pursuers  and  to  move  slowly,  found, 
when  they  had  eaten  what  was  in  their  haversacks,  that 
the  convoys  were  all  several  marches  ahead  of  them.  They 
suffered  terribly,  and  existed  for  two  days  mainly  on  acorns 
gleaned  from  the  oak  forests  through  which  they  were 
marching.  But  mischances  of  this  kind  were  hardly  to 
be  considered  the  fault  of  the  Commissariat. 

As  I  have  already  had  to  remark,  the  duty  of  the  officers 
of  this  department  did  not  merely  consist  in  bringing  up 
and  distributing  food  forwarded  from  the  base  depots. 
They  had  also,  as  a  subsidiary  resource,  to  get  what  they 
could  out  of  the  countryside.  A  good  assistant-com¬ 
missary  was  always  casting  about,  through  the  villages 
on  either  side  of  the  route  of  the  brigade  to  which  he  was 
attached,  to  find  cattle  and  corn  that  could  be  bought. 
He  was  forced  to  pay  for  them,  since  Wellington  strictly 


The  Resources  of  the  Country  317 


forbade  requisition  without  value  given.  When  the  com¬ 
missary  had  dollars  the  matter  was  not  so  difficult,  for  the 
peasants  were  generally  ready  to  sell.  But  when,  as  often 
happened,  the  military  chest  was  empty,  and  payment 
could  only  be  made  in  vales — paper  promises  to  pay — the 
inhabitants  soon  got  wind  of  the  fact,  hid  their  corn,  and 
drove  their  oxen  up  into  the  hills.  The  good  commissary 
was  the  man,  who,  under  such  circumstances  could  dis¬ 
cover  and  get  possession  of  the  concealed  resources  of  the 
land.  But  even  if  there  was  money  in  hand,  a  good  deal 
of  tact  was  required  in  dealing  with  the  natives,  and  it  was 
not  every  one  who  would  make  the  most  of  his  store  of 
cash  or  paper  for  the  benefit  of  his  brigade.  How  the 
ingenious  man  worked  may  be  gathered  from  a  note  of 
Commissary  Dallas,  dealing  with  a  march  through  Northern 
Andalusia  in  1812.* 

“  Having  made  careful  inquiries  as  to  the  properties 
and  farms  which  lay  at  some  distance  to  right  or  left  of 
the  road,  our  plan  was  to  seek  them,  not  saying  a  word 
of  our  object,  but  simply  asking  hospitality.  I  do  not 
remember  that  this  was  ever  refused,  though  sometimes 
we  failed  to  gain  anything.  We  usually  began  with  talking 
of  the  horrors  of  the  French,  of  which  Andres  had  many 
terrible  chapters  to  relate.  This  led  to  expressions  of  grief 
as  to  the  ravages  that  the  enemy  had  made :  by  degrees 
we  introduced  a  word  of  rejoicing  that  some  people  had  so 
well  known  how  to  hide  their  property  from  such  rapacious 
robbers.  It  often  happened  that  at  the  word  esconder,  to  hide, 
there  were  indications  on  the  countenances  of  some  of  the 
party  which  led  to  further  inquiries.  On  many  occasions 
Ave  drew  out  hints  from  various  members  of  the  community 
which  enabled  us  to  jump  to  conclusions,  which  surprised 
other  members,  as  to  the  concealment  of  stores  of  wheat, 
barley,  Indian  corn,  etc.  The  difficulty  was  to  obtain 
access  to  the  supplies,  when  we  had  become  aware  of  their 

*  Dallas  was  taking  care  of  the  brigade  of  Skerrett,  then  march¬ 
ing  (Oct.,  1812)  from  Seville  to  Aranjucz,  right  across  Central  Spain. 


318 


The  Commissariat' 


existence  ;  but  I  had  power  to  give  a  good  price,  and  was 
armed  with  plenary  authority  of  Spanish  officials  to  say 
that  my  drafts  would  be  honoured  in  due  course. 

“  An  incident  or  two  will  illustrate  the  manner  in  which 
we  got  supplies.  At  one  distant  solitary  house  of  poor  ap¬ 
pearance  Andres  discovered  that,  while  everything  looked 
poverty-stricken  about  the  place,  there  was  somewhere  in 
a  thick  wood  a  barn  which  contained  concealed  stores. 
-I  told  the  mistress  of  the  house  of  the  very  high  price  that 
'I  would  give  for  wheat,  Indian  corn,  or  forage.  In  the 
grey  October  dawn  I  was  awoke  by  her  husband,  who  told 
me  he  could  supply  what  I  wanted,  if  I  would  give  a  certain 
price,  which  he  named.  I  said  that  I  must  see  the  supplies 
before  I  gave  money.  He  bade  me  rise,  and  he  would 
show  me.  He  led  me  two  miles  to  a  thick  wood,  in  which 
was  a  deep  ravine  ;  here  he  brought  me  safely  to  a  receptacle 
of  much  hidden  store,  which  I  took  at  his  own  price,  and 
gave  him  the  proper  document.  In  one  part  of  the  Sierra 
Morena  we  heard  of  a  considerable  flock  of  sheep  secreted 
in  the  depth  of  a  forest.  I  obtained  the  permission  of  the 
owner  to  possess  them  for  a  certain  price  if  I  could  get  them, 
for  he  himself  could  not  point  out  the  spot  where  they 
were  to  be  found.  After  gathering  what  information  I 
could,  I  set  forth  in  the  hope  of  finding  them,  and  did  so  by 
following  a  track  of  sheep  till  I  arrived  in  the  middle  of 
the  flock.  I  told  the  two  shepherds  that  I  had  purchased 
them — they  were  doubtful  and  one  very  refractory.  But 
at  last  one  of  them  drove  the  sheep  to  the  open  plain  outside 
the  forest,  and  then  disappeared  among  the  trees  with  his 
dog,  leaving  me  to  drive  the  flock  as  I  could.  It  was  no 
easy  task — but  I  got  them  into  an  enclosure  a  considerable 
way  off.”  * 

If  these  were  the  experiences  of  a  Commissariat  official 
who  had  been  three  years  in  Spain,  and  knew  the  language 
well,  it  is  easy  to  guess  how  inefficient  a  newly  landed  clerk 

*  Autobiography  of  the  Rev.  Alexander  Dallas,  London,  1871, 
pp.  59,  60 


The  Unpopular  Commissary 


310 


or  assistant  must  have  been,  when  he  was  sent  to  sweep 
the  countryside  for  what  he  could  discover.  It  was  a 
thankless  task — often  the  seeker  came  back  empty,  to  be 
frowned  upon  by  his  departmental  chief  and  the  brigadier. 
When  he  did  discover  food,  it  was  taken  for  granted,  and 
he  was  little  thanked.  The  fighting  men  seem  to  have 
had  a  general  prejudice  against  their  providers — they  were 
accused  of  being  timid,  arrogant,  and  selfish,  and  the 
embezzlements  of  certain  black  sheep  were  made  to  cover  a 
general  charge  of  dishonesty  against  the  whole  tribe,  which 
was  far  from  being  justified.  Misfeasance  there  certainly 
was,  when  an  unscrupulous  commissary  credited  a  peasant 
with  more  fanegas  than  he  had  received,  and  divided  the 
balance  of  cash  with  the  seller.  But  on  the  whole  the 
work  was  well  done,  despite  of  the  many  complaints  of  the 
military — from  Wellington  himself  downwards.  That  the 
Peninsular  War  was  successfully  maintained  in  1810-11-12 
was  surely,  at  bottom,  the  work  of  the  much -maligned 
commissaries,  and  the  motley  band  of  ill-paid  and  sometimes 
ruffianly  muleteers  and  waggoners,  who,  through  a  thousand 
difficulties,*  generally  got  the  biscuit  and  the  rum-barrels, 
the  droves  of  bullocks,  and  the  packs  of  clothing  and  shoes, 
to  their  appointed  destination. 

*  For  the  maddening  delays,  caused  by  the  impossibility  of 
finding  a  mule-train  ready  to  go  back  to  the  front,  a  good  example 
may  be  found  in  the  autobiography  of  Quartermaster  Surtees  of 
the  95th,  stranded  at  Abrantes  for  unending  weeks  in  the  lato 
autumn  of  1812  with  the  new  clothing  of  liis  battalion,  which  (a& 
he  knew)  was  suffering  bitterly  for  want  of  it. 


CHAPTER  XX 


A  NOTE  ON  THINGS  SPIRITUAL 

In  the  first  chapter  of  this  volume  I  had  occasion  to  remark 
that  Wellington’s  army  had  in  its  ranks  a  considerable 
sprinkling  of  men  of  religion,  and  that  three  or  four  of 
the  better  Peninsular  memoirs  were  written  by  them. 
Some  were  Methodists,  some  Churchmen,  so  that  both 
sides  of  the  great  spiritual  movement  which  had  started 
about  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  represented 
in  their  diaries.  The  spiritual  side  of  the  soldier’s  fife 
during  the  great  war  has  had  so  little  written  about  it, 
that  a  few  illustrative  pages  on  this  topic  must  not  be 
omitted. 

We  may  trace  the  existence  of  the  admirable  class  of 
men  who  have  left  us  these  memoirs  to  two  separate 
causes.  The  one,  of  course,  was  the  way  in  which  the 
movement  started  by  the  Wesleys  had  influenced  all 
ranks  of  fife,  from  the  lowest  upward.  Its  effects  had 
not  been  confined  to  avowed  Methodists,  but  had  led  to 
the  rise  of  the  Evangelical  party  within  the  Church  of 
England,  which  was  developing  very  rapidly  all  through 
the  days  of  the  Great  War.  But  I  think  that  even  if  the 
Wesleys  had  never  lived,  there  would  yet  have  been  a 
strong  reaction  in  favour  of  godly  living  and  the  open 
profession  of  Christianity,  in  consequence  of  the  blas¬ 
phemous  antics  of  the  French  Revolution.  Nothing  in 
that  movement  so  disgusted  Englishmen  (even  those  of 
them  who  were  not  much  given  to  practical  religion)  as  the 
story  of  the  “  Goddess  of  Reason,”  enthroned  on  the  high- 
altar  of  Notre  Dame,  at  the  time  when  an  orgy  of  bloodshed 


Effects  of  the  French  Revolution  321 


was  making  odious  the  flatulent  talk  about  humanitarianism 
and  liberty  which  was  the  staple  of  Revolutionary  orator}'. 
The  peculiar  combination  of  insult  to  Christianity,  open 
evil  living,  and  wholesale  judicial  murder,  which  distin¬ 
guished  the  time  of  the  Terror,  had  an  effect  on  observers 
comparable  to  nothing  else  that  has  been  seen  in  modem 
times.  Even  men  who  had  not  hitherto  taken  their 
religion  very  seriously,  began  to  think  that  a  hell  was 
logically  necessary  in  the  scheme  of  creation  for  beings 
like  Chaumette  or  Hebert,  Fouquier  Tinville  or  Carrier  of 
the  Noyade-s.  And,  we  may  add,  a  personal  devil  was 
surely  required,  to  account  for  the  promptings  of  insane 
wickedness  which  led  to  the  actions  of  such  people.  A 
tightening  up  of  religious  observances,  such  as  the  use  of 
family  prayer  and  regular  attendance  at  Church,  was  a 
marked  feature  of  the  time.  It  required  some  time  for 
the  movement  to  spread,  but  its  effect  was  soon  observable. 
It  naturally  took  shape  in  adhesion  to  Evangelical  societies 
within  the  Church  of  England,  or  Methodist  societies 
without  it ;  since  these  were  the  already  existing  nuclei 
round  which  those  whose  souls  had  been  stirred  by  the 
horrors  in  France  and  the  imminent  peril  of  Great  Britain 
would  group  themselves. 

Very  soon  the  day  was  over  in  which  “  enthusiasm  ” 
was  the  dread  of  all  normal  easy-going  men.  Something 
more  than  the  eighteenth  century  religious  sentimentalism, 
and  vague  spiritual  philosophy,  was  needed  for  a  nation 
which  had  to  fight  for  life  and  empire  against  the  French 
Republic  and  all  its  works.  Those  methods  of  thought 
were  sufficiently  discredited  by  the  fact  that  there  was  a 
touch  of  Rousseau  in  them  :  it  was  easy  to  look  over  the 
Channel,  and  see  to  what  a  belief  in  some  nebulous  Supreme 
Being,  and  in  the  perfectibility  and  essential  righteousness 
of  mankind  at  large,  might  lead.  The  God  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  a  much  more  satisfactory  object  of  worship 
to  the  men  who  had  to  face  the  Jacobin,  and  Calvinism 
has  always  proved  a  good^fighting  creed.  If  ever  there 

y 


322 


Spiritual  Life 


was  a  justification  for  a  belief  that  the  enemy  were  in  a 
condition  of  complete  reprobation,  and  that  to  smite 
them  was  the  duty  of  every  Christian  man,  it  was  surely 
at  this  time.  The  conviction  of  the  universality  of  sin 
and  the  natural  wickedness  of  the  human  heart  was  the 
exact  opposite  and  antidote  to  the  optimistic  philosophy 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  to  its  belief  that  man  is 
essentially  a  benevolent  being,  and  that  if  he  sometimes 
breaks  out  into  deplorable  violence  “  tout  comprendre  est 
tout  pardonner.”  As  a  working  hypothesis  for  an  enemy 
of  the  French  Revolution  the  Calvinistic  theory  had 
everything  in  its  favour. 

The  army,  like  English  society  in  general,  contained  an 
appreciable  proportion  of  those  whom  the  stress  and  terror 
of  the  times  had  made  anxious  about  their  souls.  Some 
took  their  religious  experience  quietly,  and  found  sufficient 
edification  in  accepted  forms.  Many,  however,  filled  with 
a  fervent  belief  in  original  sin  and  in  the  blackness  of  their 
own  hearts,  only  got  comfort  by  “  conversion  ”  in  the  pre¬ 
valent  form  of  the  day,  and  in  subsequent  reliance  on 
complete  Justification  by  Faith. 

“  Conversion  ”  was  frequently  a  matter  of  dire  spiritual 
agony  and  wrestling,  often  accompanied  by  fits  of  horrible 
depression,  which  were  generally  fought  down,  but  some¬ 
times  ended  in  religious  mania.  Sergeant  Donaldson  of  the 
94th,  whom  I  have  often  had  to  quote  in  other  chapters, 
tells  a  terrible  tale  from  his  own  regiment  of  a  man  whose 
weak  point  had  been  a  violent  temper,  and  a  tendency  to 
use  his  fists.  Being  under  strong  religious  emotion,  and 
having  determined  never  again  to  offend  in  this  way,  he 
had  the  misfortune  to  break  out  once  more  in  unjustifiable 
blows,  administered  to  his  peasant  landlord  in  the  village 
of  Ustaritz.  Ashamed  of  his  backsliding  he  fell  into  a 
fit  of  despair,  and  brooding  over  the  text  “  if  thy  right  hand 
offend  thee,  cut  it  off,”  he  resolved  that  this  was  the  only 
cure  for  his  irascibility.  Whereupon  he  went,  and  without 
auy  display  of  emotion  or  eccentricity,  very  quietly 


The  Agonies  of  Conversion 


323 


borrowed  a  felling-axe  from  one  of  the  regimental  pioneers, 
placed  his  right  hand  upon  a  window-sill,  and  cut  it  off 
with  a  single  blow  delivered  very  dexterously  with  his 
left.  He  then  went  and  reported  his  act  and  its  reason  to 
the  regimental  surgeon,  with  great  calmness  and  lucidity.* 
Such  incidents  as  this  were  rare  among  those  who  were 
undergoing  the  process  of  Conversion,  but  it  was  generally 
accompanied  by  long  spasms  of  conviction  of  sin,  when, 
as  one  memoir-writer  records,  “  all  the  crimes  of  his  life 
passed  before  him  in  black  array,  when  he  felt  that  if  he 
could  but  bury  himself  in  a  cave  or  den  of  the  earth,  and 
forego  all  intercourse  with  mankind,  it  would  be  to  purchase 
pardon  and  peace  easily  and  cheaply.  .  .  .  Life  was  but 
the  dreadful  expectation  of  that  fatal  hour  when  the 
fiend  would  be  commissioned  to  seize  and  carry  off  the 
guilty  soul  to  its  abode  of  everlasting  misery.”  f  Another 
diarist  records  that,  as  he  went  down  toward  the  great 
breach  of  Badajoz,  he  was  repeating  to  himself  very  forcibly, 
“  You  will  be  in  hell  before  daylight  ”  all  the  time,  till  he 
received  a  disabling  wound.  This  rifleman,  when  he 
experienced  conversion,  received  therewith  an  unexpected 
gift  of  metrical  exposition.  His  autobiography  is  curiously 
sprinkled  with  his  impromptu  verses  such  as — 

“  Then  why  let  our  minds  be  encumbered 
’Bout  what  such  poor  worms  may  befall, 

When  the  hairs  of  our  head  are  all  numbered 
By  Him  who  reigns  King  over  all  ?  ” 

And  again — 

“  I  shall  go  where  duty  calls  me. 

Patient  bearing  what  befalls  me, 

Jesus  Christ  will  bring  me  through  ! 

Bullets,  cannon  balls  or  death 
Cannot  hurt  ‘  the  better  part,’ 

So  I’ll  list  to  what  He  saith 
Till  He  bids  me  home  depart.”  J 


*  See  Donaldson’s  Eventful  Life  of  a  Soldier,  pp.  219,  220. 
t  Surtees’s  Twenty-five  Years  in  the  Rifle  Brigade,  pp.  173,  175. 

X  From  Travels  and  Adventures  of  Bugler  William  Green,  late  of 
the  Rifle  Brigade,  Coventry,  1857 — a  most  interesting  little  book. 


324 


Spiritual  Life 


This  ecstatic  confidence  of  the  converted  man  is  very 
clearly  expressed  in  many  a  little  book.  A  Guards’  sergeant, 
whose  memoirs  I  have  had  occasion  to  quote  in  earlier 
chapters,  mentions  that,  all  through  the  hard  experience  of 
his  brigade  at  Talavera,  he  was  comforted  by  the  thought 
that,  however  disastrous  the  day  was  looking,  “the  Lord 
can  save  us  now.” 

“  Standing  between  the  enemy  and  my  own  men, 
with  the  shot  ploughing  up  the  ground  all  about  me,  the 
Lord  kept  me  from  all  fear,  and  I  got  back  to  my  place  in 
the  line  without  injury  and  without  agitation.  Indeed, 
who  should  be  so  firm  as  the  Christian  soldier,  who  has 
the  assurance  in  his  breast  that  to  depart  and  to  be  with 
Christ  is  far  better  than  to  continue  toiling  here  below  ?  ”  * 
On  another  occasion  this  diarist,  in  a  long  waiting  spell 
before  a  dangerous  disembarkation,  found  Wesley’s  two 
hundred  and  twenty-seventh  hymn  running  in  his  mind 
all  the  morning,  to  the  inexpressible  comfort  of  his  soul 
during  an  anxious  time. 

This  kind  of  comfortable  ecstasy  did  not  by  any  means 
preclude  a  ready  and  competent  employment  of  musket 
and  bayonet.  One  or  two  of  the  notable  personal  exploits 
of  the  Peninsular  War  were  done  by  “  saints.”  There  is 
a  special  mention  in  several  diaries,  regimental  and  general, 
of  John  Rae,  of  the  71st,  a  well-known  Methodist,  who 
at  the  combat  of  Sobral  (October  14,  1810),  being  the 
last  man  of  the  skirmishers  of  his  battalion  to  retire,  was 
beset  by  three  French  tirailleurs,  on  whom  he  turned,  and 
shot  one  and  bayoneted  the  other  two  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye.  He  received  a  medal  for  his  conduct  from  his 
brigadier,  who  had  been  an  eye-witness  of  the  affair,  f 

The  attitude  of  Wellington  toward  religion  at  large, 
and  religious  soldiers  in  particular,  was  very  much  what 

*  Memoirs  of  John  Stevenson,  3rd  Foot  Guards,  p.  191. 

f  Recorded  in  Tancred’s  Historical  Medals :  for  details  see 
Stevenson,  as  also  the  Life  of  a  Scottish  Soldier,  which  is  a  71st 
book  (p.  118). 


Wellington’s  Views  on  Religion  325 


one  might  have  expected  from  his  peculiar  blend  of  personal 
characteristics.  He  was  a  sincere  believer  in  Christianity 
as  presented  £by  the  Church  of  England,  but  he  had  not 
been  in  the  least  affected  by  recent  evangelical  developments, 
and  his  belief  was  of  a  rather  dry  and  official  sort ;  an  officer 
who  took  to  public  preaching  and  the  forming  of  religious 
societies  was  only  two  or  three  degrees  less  distasteful  to 
him  than  an  officer  who  was  foul-mouthed  in  his  language 
and  openly  contemned  holy  things.  I  fancy  that  the 
Duke  would  have  been  inclined  to  regard  both  as  “  un- 
gentlemanly.”  Religion  with  him  was  the  due  recognition 
of  the  fact  that  man  has  a  Creator,  who  has  imposed  upon 
him  a  code  of  laws  and  a  system  of  morality  which  it  is 
man’s  duty  to  remember,  and  so  far  as  he  may,  to  observe. 
He  was  quite  ready  to  acknowledge  that  he  had  his  own 
failings,  but  trusted  that  they  were  not  unpardonable  ones. 
The  two  or  three  Evangelical  enthusiasts  who  had  the 
courage  to  tackle  him  in  his  later  days  on  the  subject  of 
his  soul,  got  small  profit  thereby.* 

It  is  highly  to  his  credit  that  he  made  from  1810  onward 
a  serious  attempt  to  organize  a  system  of  brigade  chaplain¬ 
cies  for  his  army,  and  to  see  that  the  men  should  not  lack 
the  possibility  of  public  worship.  Down  to  that  year  the 
chaplains’  department  had  been  much  neglected:  large 
expeditions  had  gone  out  without  a  single  clergyman 
attached,  and  in  the  first  Peninsular  Army  of  1808  there 
had  been  very  few — though  two  of  them,  Ormsby  and 
Bradford,  happen  to  have  left  interesting  books  behind 
them,  the  latter’s  beautifully  illustrated  by  sketches. 
Wellington  complained  that  the  provision  that  he  found 
in  1809  was  wholly  inadequate,  asked  for  and  obtained  an 
additional  establishment,  and  made  arrangements  for 
regular  Sunday  services  in  each  brigade. 

The  letter  of  February  6,  1811,  in  which  he  explains 

*  The  absurd  semi-religious  correspondence  of  the  Duke  and 
‘Miss  J.’  in  tho  1840’s,  published  some  ton  yoars  back  may  bo 
remembered. 


326 


Spiritual  Life 


his  views  to  the  Adjutant  General  at  the  Horse  Guards  is 
a  very  characteristic  document.  “  The  army  should  have 
the  advantage  of  religious  instruction,  from  a  knowledge 
that  it  is  the  greatest  support  and  aid  to  military  discipline 
and  order.”  But  there  are  not  enough  chaplains,  and 
those  that  exist  are  not  always  “  respectable.”  The 
prospects  of  a  military  chaplain  are  not  attractive  enough  ; 
on  retirement  he  is  much  worse  off  than  he  would  have  been 
“  if  he  had  followed  any  other  line  of  the  clerical  profession 
besides  the  army.”  Hence  few  good  men  are  obtained. 
For  want  of  sufficiently  numerous  and  influential  official 
teachers,  spontaneous  religious  life  has  broken  out  in  the 
army.  There  are  three  Methodist  meetings  in  the  1st 
Division  alone.  In  the  9th  regiment  two  officers  are  preach¬ 
ing,  in  despite  of  their  colonels’  dissuasions. 

“  The  meeting  of  soldiers  in  their  cantonments  to  sing 
psalms,  or  to  hear  a  sermon  read  by  one  of  their  comrades  is, 
in  the  abstract,  perfectly  innocent ;  it  is  a  better  way  of 
spending  their  time  than  many  others  to  which  they  are 
addicted.  But  it  may  become  otherwise,  and  yet,  till  the 
abuse  has  made  some  progress,  their  commanding  officer 
would  have  no  knowledge  of  it,  nor  could  he  interfere.” 

Official  religious  instruction  is  the  proper  remedy.  A 
“  respectable  clergyman  ”  is  wanted,  who  “  by  his  personal 
influence  and  advice,  and  by  that _of  true  religion,  would 
moderate  the  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  those  people,  and 
prevent  meetings  from  becoming  mischievous,  even  if  he 
could  not  prevail  upon  them  to  discontinue  them  entirely.” 
Wherefore  the  Adjutant  General  must  provide  for  a  larger 
establishment  of  “  respectable  and  efficient  clergymen.” 

The  Horse  Guards  complied  at  once  :  chaplains,  it  was 
replied,  should  be  sent  out  “  selected  with  the  utmost  care 
and  circumspection  by  the  first  prelates  of  the  country.” 
Their  pay  was  raised,  and  they  were  directed  to  conclude 
every  service  with  a  short  practical  sermon,  suited  to  the 
habits  and  understanding  of  soldiers.  “  Good  preaching,” 
adds  the  Adjutant  General,  “  is  more  than  ever  required 


The  Chaplains  327 

at  a  time  peculiarly  marked  by  the  exertions  and  inter¬ 
ference  of  sectaries  of  various  denominations.”  * 

The  chaplains  duly  appeared.  There  were  good  men 
among  them,  but  they  were  not,  taken  as  a  whole,  a  com¬ 
plete  success.  Perhaps  the  idea,  equally  nourished  by 
Wellington  and  by  the  Horse  Guards,  that  “  respectable  ” 
clergymen  rather  than  enthusiasts  should  be  drafted  out, 
was  the  cardinal  mistake  ;  the  sort  of  men  that  were  really 
wanted  at  the  front  were  precisely  the  enthusiasts,  like  that 
Rev.  T.  Owen  (afterwards  secretary  of  the  British  and 
Foreign  Bible  Society),  of  whom  we  are  told  that  he  was  in 
days  of  action  so  far  forward  in  the  field  that  officers 
warned  him  that  he  would  infallibly  be  killed.  His  reply 
was  that  his  primary  duty  was  “  to  be  of  service  to  those 
now  departing  this  life.”  {  This  sort  of  laudable  energy, 
I  am  bound  to  say,  does  not  seem  to  have  been  the  most 
common  characteristic  of  the  chaplains,  if  we  may  trust 
the  diaries  of  the  time. 

A  good  many  of  them  were  sent  straight  out  from  a 
country  curacy  to  the  front,  had  no  special  knowledge  of 
soldiers  and  their  ways,  and  were  appalled  at  having  to 
face  the  great  facts  of  life  and  death  in  their  crudest  form 
day  after  day.  There  is  one  distressing  picture  of  a  young 
clergyman  suddenly  confronted  in  the  guard-tent  with 
five  deserters  who  were  to  be  shot  that  afternoon.  They 
were  all  criminals  who  had  been  actually  taken  in  tho 
French  ranks,  fighting  against  their  old  comrades,  at  the 
storm  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo.  The  chaplain  helplessly  read 
prayers  at  them,  felt  that  he  could  do  no  more  with  callous 
ruffians  who  had  met  the  death-sentence  with  an  oath, 
and  followed  them  to  the  execution-place  looking  very 
uncomfortable,  quite  useless,  and  much  ashamed  of 
himself. 

It  was  almost  as  trying,  if  not  so  horrible,  to  be  tackled 

*  Sir  H.  Calvert,  Adjutant  General,  to  Wellington,  8th  November, 
1811. 

f  See  Stevenson,  p.  172. 


328 


Spiritual  Life 


by  a,  Calvinist  in  the  throes  of  conversion,  who  gave  glowing 
pictures  of  hell-fire,  and  asked  for  the  means  of  avoiding 
it,  refusing  to  take  as  an  answer  any  dole  of  chapters  from 
the  New  Testament  or  petitions  from  the  Prayer  Book. 
Here  is  a  picture  of  the  situation  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  penitent,  Quartermaster  Surtees,  whom  I  have  already 
had  occasion  to  quote. 

“  From  the  clergyman,  though  a  kind  and  sympathizing 
man,  I,  alas  !  derived  but  little  benefit.  He  did  not  direct 
me  to  the  only  source  of  a  sin-sick  being’s  hopes — the  Lamb 
of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sins  of  the  world.  He  tried 
to  make  my  hopes  centre  more  on  good  resolutions,  and 
after-doings.  How  thankfully  would  I  have  accepted  the 
true  method  of  salvation  pointed  out  in  the  gospel ;  but 
already  I  was  but  too  much  (as  the  natural  man  always  is) 
inclined  to  expect  pardon  from  the  acts  of  penitence  which, 
if  God  spared  me,  I  intended  to  perform.  The  kind 
gentleman  wrote  me  out  prayers,  and  seemed  much  in¬ 
terested  in  my  welfare.  But  reading  and  praying  seemed 
more  like  an  irksome  task  than  an  exercise  which  brought 
spiritual  profit.  .  .  .  Indeed  the  Scriptures  were  still  at 
this  time  a  ‘  sealed  book  ’  to  me ;  until  the  grace  of  God 
has  dispelled  our  darkness  there  is  no  light  in  anything.”  * 

Clearly  the  Quartermaster  had  come  upon  one  of  those 
sensible  and  commonplace  clergy  whom  Wellington  had 
requisitioned  from  the  Chaplain-general’s  department, 
when  he  wanted  an  Evangelist  who  would  have  preached 
to  him  Justification  by  Faith  in  its  simplest  form. 

There  are  a  good  many  humorous  anecdotes  concerning 
the  race  of  Chaplains  preserved  in  the  Peninsular  diaries, 
not  for  the  most  part  imputing  to  them  any  serious  moral 
failing — though  several  are  accused  of  having  become 
“  Belemites,”  j  and  of  shirking  the  front — but  tending  to 
prove  that  they  often  failed  to  rise  to  the  occasion  in  their 
difficult  calling.  This  was  indeed  to  be  expected  when 

*  Surtees,  pp.  177-9. 

t  For  the  “  Bolomites  ”  see  above,  pp.  204-5. 


The  Methodists 


329 


most  of  them  had  not  the  least  knowledge  of  military  life 
and  customs,  and  were  wandering  about  for  many  months 
in  a  world  quite  new  to  them.  Clearly  only  men  of  ex¬ 
perience  should  have  been  sent — but  (as  Wellington  remarks 
in  one  of  his  letters)  the  pay  offered  was  so  small  that  only 
enthusiasts  or  very  poor  men  could  be  expected  to  take 
it — and  enthusiasts,  for  other  reasons,  the  commander-in- 
chief  did  not  like.  The  soldier  seems  often  to  have  been 
struck  by  the  helplessness  of  the  chaplain — he  let  himself 
be  robbed  by  his  servants,  wandered  outside  the  picquets 
and  got  captured  by  the  French,  or  was  deceived  by  obvious 
hypocrites.  There  is  one  ridiculous  story  of  a  young 
clergyman  who,  when  first  brought  forward  to  take  a 
brigade  Sunday  service,  and  placed  behind  the  big-drum, 
which  was  to  serve  him  as  a  sort  of  central  mark,  mistook 
its  function  for  that  of  a  pulpit,  and  endeavoured  to  mount 
upon  it,  with  disastrous  results,  and  to  the  infinite  laughter 
of  the  congregation. 

Not  unfrequently  the  chaplains  fell  out  with  the 
Methodists  among  their  flocks.  They  had  been  specially 
imported  by  Wellington  in  order  that  they  might  discourage 
the  prayer  meetings — “  getting  up  little  conventicles  ”  as 
one  of  them  called  these  assemblies.  “  The  Church  service 
is  sufficient  for  the  instruction  of  mankind,”  said  another, 
and  “  the  zeal  for  preaching  ”  tended  to  self-sufficiency 
and  incipient  pharisaism.  On  the  whole,  however,  there 
was  no  regular  or  normal  opposition  between  Church  of 
England  and  Methodist  soldiers  ;  they  were  in  such  a 
minority  among  the  godless  that  it  would  have  been  absurd 
for  them  to  have  quarrelled.  The  Methodists  regularly 
received  the  sacrament  from  the  chaplains  along  with  the 
churchmen,  and  the  latter  were  frequently  to  be  found 
at  the  prayer  meetings  of  the  former. 

Sergeant  Stevenson’s  memoir,  a  mine  of  useful  informa¬ 
tion  in  this  respect,  informs  us  that  the  regular  organized 
prayer  meeting  of  the  Wesleyans  in  the  1st  Division  was 
begun  in  a  gravel-pit  just  outside  the  walls  of  Badajoz,  in 


330 


Spiritual  Life 


September,  1809,  and  never  ceased  from  that  time  forward. 
During  the  long  sojourn  behind  the  Lines  of  Torres  Vedras 
it  was  held  for  many  weeks  in  a  large  wine-press,  holding 
more  than  a  hundred  men,  behind  the  village  of  Cartaxo, 
quite  close  to  Wellington’s  headquarters,  where  indeed 
the  hymns  sung  could  be  clearly  heard.  There  were 
similar  associations  in  other  divisions,  some  mainly  Church 
of  England,  some  (as  in  the  79th  regiment)  Presbyterian. 
Stevenson  says  that  he  never  heard  of  any  opposition  on 
the  part  of  commanding  officers,  save  in  the  case  of  one 
captain,  whose  preaching  was  finally  ended  by  a  course  of 
persecution  on  the  part  of  his  colonel.  But  of  course  the 
“  saints  ”  had  to  endure  a  good  deal  of  ridicule  from  their 
comrades,  more  especially  those  of  them  who  took  occasion 
to  testify  against  drunkenness  or  blasphemy.  Stevenson 
gives  a  verse  of  his  own,  which  he  says  that  he  pasted  up 
in  the  sergeants’  room  of  the  3rd  Guards,  to  discourage 
profane  swearing  at  large. 

“  It  chills  the  blood  to  hear  the  Blest  Supreme 
Rashly  appealed  to  on  each  trifling  theme. 

Maintain  your  rank  :  vulgarity  despise  ; 

To  swear  is  neither  brave,  polite,  nor  wise." 

We  may  observe  a  certain  canny  appeal  to  the  self- 
respect  of  the  non-commissioned  officer,  in  the  insinuation 
that  by  blasphemy  he  lowers  himself  to  the  ranks,  and  is 
guilty  of  vulgarity  and  wrant  of  politeness.  It  is  to  be 
feared  that  these  couplets  might  have  been  not  inappro¬ 
priately  hung  up  in  the  mess  rooms  of  certain  regiments 
whose  colonels  were  by  no  means  choice  in  their  language. 

Among  the  senior  officers  of  the  Peninsular  Army 
there  were  a  good  number  who  were  not  merely  like 
Wellington,  conformists  of  an  official  sort,  but  zealous 
Christians,  such  were  Hill,  Le  Marchant,*  Colborne,  and 

*  Who  “never  went  into  action  without  subjecting  himself  to  a 
strict  self-examination,  when  after  having  (as  he  humbly  hoped) 
made  his  peace  with  God,  he  left  the  result  in  His  hands  with 
perfect  confidence  that  He  will  determine  what  is  best  for  him.” — See 
Cole’s  Peninsular  Generals,  ii.  292. 


Soldier-Parsons 


331 


John  Beckwith — the  Light  Division  colonel,  who  devoted 
his  later  years  to  taking  care  of  the  Waldenses  of  Piedmont, 
among  whom  he  settled  down  in  the  evening  of  his  life. 
Quite  a  sprinkling  of  the  younger  officers  took  orders 
when  the  war  was  over,  after  the  great  disbandment  of 
1816-17,  when  all  the  second  battalions  were  disembodied. 
Such  were  three  men  who  have  left  us  excellent  Peninsular 
diaries,  Gleig  of  the  85th,  the  author  of  “  The  Subaltern,” 
and  other  works,  afterwards  Chaplain-General  to  the  forces  ; 
Dallas,  who  made  a  great  name  as  an  evangelist  at  Burford, 
was  another  soldier-parson  ;  Boothby,  who  wrote  a  good 
journal  concerning  Maida,  Corunna,  and  Talavera,  was  a 
third.  The  type  generally  ran  to  strong  Evangelicalism, 
as  was  natural,  considering  that  this  was  the  really  live 
and  vigorous  element  in  the  Church  of  that  day. 

It  is  clear  that  the  religious  condition  of  regiments 
varied  extremely — that  in  some  the  influence  of  serious 
and  devout  officers  and  men  was  large,  in  others  practically 
invisible.  The  character  of  the  colonel  made  some  difference 
for  good  or  bad,  but  I  imagine  that  more  depended  on  the 
existence  or  non-existence  of  some  small  knot  of  officers 
or  sergeants  who  did  not  fear  to  let  their  views  be  known, 
and  formed  a  nucleus  around  which  steady  men  gathered. 
Their  names  are  mostly  forgotten,  the  record  of  their 
witnessing  has  perished,  or  emerges  only  in  some  obscure 
corner  of  a  little-read  biography  or  an  old  religious  magazine. 
I  could  wish  that  some  sympathetic  hand  could  devote  a 
whole  book  to  collecting  and  recording  that  which  I  have 
only  been  able  to  touch  upon  in  this  short  chapter.  It  is  a 
side  of  the  life  of  the  Peninsular  Army  which  well  deserves 
recording,  since  without  some  notice  of  it  the  picture  of 
military  society  during  the  great  war  is  wholly  incomplete. 


APPENDIX  I. 

(A.)  ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  BRITISH  INFANTRY  OF  THE  LINE.  July,  1809. 

Hie  star  *  affixed  to  a  battalion  s  station  mean9  that  it  had  just  returned  from  Sir  John  Moore's  Corunna  Campaign. 


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o34  Establishment  of  British  Army  in  1809 


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Establishment  of  British  Army  in  1809  337 


338  Establishment  of  British  Army  in  1809 


A  consideration  of  the  prefixed  table  of  “  establishments  ”  shows 
the  following  results.  Putting  aside  the  regiments  with  many 
battalions  (the  1st,  14th,  27th,  60th,  95th),  the  remainder  fall  into 
two-battalion  and  single-battalion  corps. 

Of  the  61  double-battalion  regiments — 

9  were  at  a  strength  of  2250  or  thereabouts.* 

17  were  at  a  strength  of  2031  or  thereabouts.! 

16  were  at  a  strength  of  1820  or  thereabouts.! 

12  were  at  a  strength  of  1610  or  thereabouts.§ 

7  were  at  a  strength  of  under  1600.|| 

All  the  regiments  on  the  two  higher  establishments  (with  one 
exception)  had  both  battalions  on  active  service  in  1809,  either 
one  in  the  Indies  and  one  in  Europe,  or  both  in  Europe.  Hence 
it  was  necessary  to  keep  them  at  a  very  high  figure. 

Those  with  1820  or  1610  men  were  nearly  all  regiments  which 
had  one  battalion  on  active  service  and  one  on  home  service,  though 
a  very  few  had  both  overseas  (such  as  the  18th,  34th,  39th,  62nd) ; 
in  such  cases  the  2nd  battalion,  though  on  service,  was  very  weak. 

The  two-battalion  corps  with  under  1600  men  were  almost 
invariably  regiments  which  had  one  battalion  in  the  Indies,  worked 
down  to  very  low  numbers  by  disease,  and  had  failed  to  keep  up 
its  strength  (the  15th,  25th,  96th  in  the  West,  the  59th,  69th  in  the 
East  Indies). 

The  37  single-battalion  regiments  stood  on  the  following 
establishments — 

6  were  at  a  strength  of  1126  or  thereabouts.** 

13  were  at  a  strength  of  940  or  thereabouts.!! 

15  were  at  a  strength  of  700-730  or  thereabouts.!! 

3  were  at  a  strength  of  under  600.§§ 

Those  corps  on  the  two  higher  establishments  are  either  actually 

*  9th,  30th,  47th,  4Stli,  53rd,  56th,  83rd,  84th,  87th.  The  83rd  was  far  over 
this  figure,  2461,  a  wholly  exceptional  strength. 

t  4th,  5th,  7th,  11th,  23rd,  24th,  28th,  31st,  42nd,  43rd,  44th,  52nd,  66th, 
67th,  81st,  88th,  89th. 

t  6th,  21st,  32nd,  34tli,  35th,  38th,  39th,  40th,  50tli,  58th,  61st,  71st,  78th, 
79th,  82nd,  92nd. 

S  3rd,  8th,  10th,  18th,  26th,  36th,  45th,  57th,  62nd,  63rd,  72nd,  90th. 

j|  15th,  25th,  59th,  69th,  73rd,  91st,  96th. 

**  13th,  17th,  29th,  76th,  80th,  93rd. 

tt  2nd,  12th,  19th,  20th,  22nd,  33rd,  49th,  61st,  64th,  97th,  90th,  101st,  102nd. 

It  37th,  41st,  54th,  55th,  65th,  68th,  70th  74th,  75th,  77th,  85th,  86th,  94th; 
99th,  100th. 

S§  16th,  46th,  103rd. 


Establishment  of  British  Army  in  1809  339 


serving,  or  are  designated  for  immediate  service  abroad,  and  have 
therefore  their  establishments  fixed  high.  Those  on  the  lower 
establishments  (730  or  under)  fall  into  two  classes :  either  they 
are  regiments  in  the  East  or  West  Indies  which  have  died  down  to 
a  low  figure  [e.g.  16th,  37th,  46th,  54th,  55th,  65th,  68th,  70th, 
86th]  or  they  are  battalions  quartered  in  peaceful  stations  and  not 
expected  to  be  sent  on  active  service,  [e.g.  41st,  99th,  100th,  103rd, 
in  Canada  and  Bermuda]  or  at  home  [74th,  75th,  77th,  85th,  94th]. 
All  the  last-named  five,  on  home  service,  were  raised  to  a  higher 
establishment  and  sent  to  the  front  in  1810-12. 

It  will  be  noted  that  of  the  one  hundred  and  three  1st  battalions, 
or  single-battalion  regiments,  a  great  many  were  not  available,  viz. 
twenty-one  in  the  East  Indies,  twenty-one  in  the  West  Indies 
(including  Bermuda),  eleven  in  the  Mediterranean  Garrisons,  five 
at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  six  in  Canada,  two  in  (or  bound 
for)  New  South  Wales.  There  were  only  twenty-five  1st  battalions 
at  home,  and  of  these  twenty  had  served  under  Moore  in  the 
Corunna  retreat  and  then  went  on  the  Walcheren  expedition,  so  that 
in  1809  they  were  unavailable.  Three  more  battalions  which  had 
not  served  under  Moore  had  shared  in  the  same  descent  on  the 
Scheldt  (74th,  77th,  85th).  There  were  actually  only  two  single¬ 
battalion  corps  which  had  neither  gone  to  Corunna  nor  to  Walcheren 
and  were  available  at  home  (75th  and  94th).*  In  the  way  of  the 
strongly  organized  first  battalions,  therefore,  there  was  absolutely 
nil  to  send  to  Wellington  in  1809  save  Craufurd’s  three  Light 
Infantry  battalions,  which  though  they  had  been  with  Moore  in 
January  were  back  in  the  Peninsula  by  Juty  (l/43rd,  l/52nd, 
l/95th). 

It  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  that  there  was  the  greatest  possiblo 
difficulty  in  finding  battalions  with  which  Wellesley’s  Peninsular 
Army  could  be  reinforced.  Of  troops  which  had  not  gone  to  Wal¬ 
cheren  there  were  left  in  Great  Britain  only  the  75th  and  94th, 
with  twenty -eight  2nd  (or  junior)  battalions  which  had  not  joined  in 
the  expedition  to  the  Scheldt.  These  were  almost  without  exception 
very  weak  units,  the  first  battalions  of  ten  of  these  were  in  the 
Indies,  then  of  five  more  already  in  the  Peninsula,  all  their  strength 
was  used  up  in  keeping  their  senior  battalions  full,  of  the  remaining 
thirteen  only  two  (2/5th  2/34th,  2/38th),  were  strong  enough  to 
be  sent  to  Portugal.  The  reinforcements  which  Wellington  was 

•  The  94th  went  out  to  Cadiz  in  1810;  the  75th,  not  long  back  from  India, 
was  very  weak  and  did  not  go  on  foreign  service  (Sicily)  till  1812. 


340  Establishment  of  British  Army  in  1809 

given  in  the  autumn  of  1809  and  the  summer  of  1810  were  largely 
scraped  up  from  foreign  garrisons — the  l/7th  from  Nova  Scotia, 
the  1/llth  from  Madeira,  the  l/57th  from  Gibraltar.  But  in  1810 
Walcheren  battalions  began  to  come  out,  such  as  the  3/lst,  l/9th, 
l/50th,  l/71st,  l/79th,  and  to  load  Wellington’s  hospitals  with  ague- 
stricken  convalescents.  For  later  reinforcements  see  Chapter  VII. 


ESTABLISHMENT  OF  CAVALRY  IN  1809. 


1st  Dragoon  Guards 

905 

Home 

2nd  Dragoon  Guards 

905 

Home 

3rd  Dragoon  Guards 

905 

Peninsular  Field  Army 

4th  Dragoon  Guards 

905 

Home 

5th  Dragoon  Guards 

905 

Home 

6th  Dragoon  Guards 

905 

Home 

7th  Dragoon  Guards 

905 

Home 

1st  Dragoons 

1083 

Peninsular  Field  Army 

2nd  Dragoons 

905 

Home 

3rd  Dragoons 

905 

Home  [went  to  Walcheren] 

4th  Dragoons 

905 

Peninsular  Field  Army 

Cth  Dragoons 

905 

Home 

7th  Hussars 

905 

*Home 

8th  Light  Dragoons 

720 

East  Indies 

9th  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Home  [went  to  Walcheren] 

0th  Hussars 

905 

*Home 

11th  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Home 

1 2th  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Home  [went  to  Walcheren] 

]  3th  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Home 

14th  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Peninsular  Field  Army 

15th  Hussars 

905 

*Home 

16th  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Penirisular  Field  Army 

17th  Light  Dragoons 

940 

East  Indies 

18th  Hussars 

905 

♦Home 

19th  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Home 

20th  Liglr  Dragoons 

905 

l  Sicily  and  l  Peninsula 

21st  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Cape  of  Good  Hope 

22nd  Light  Dragoons 

928 

East  Indies 

23rd  Light  Dragoons 

905 

Peninsular  Field  Army 

24th  Light  Dragoons 

928 

East  Indies 

25th  Light  Dragoons 

940 

East  Indies 

JT.B.— Note  that  there  was  no  5th  regiment  of  Dragoons  in  1809.  The  corps  last 
bearing  that  number  had  been  disbanded  in  1799,  and  its  successor  was  not 
raised  till  1858. 


Establishment  of  Household  Troops  1809  341 


ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  HOUSEHOLD  TROOPS  IN  1809. 


1st  Life  Guards 

416 

Home 

2nd  Life  Guards 

416 

Home 

Royal  Horse  Guards 

654 

Home 

1st  Foot  Guards 

4619 

1st  Batt.*  Home  [went  to 

(3  batts.) 

Walcheren]  ;  2nd  Batt. 
Home  ;  3rd  Batt.*  Home 
[went  to  Walcheren] 

2nd  (Coldstream)  Foot 

2887 

1st  Batt.  Peninsular  Field 

Guards  (2  batts.) 

Army ;  2nd  Batt.  Home 

3rd  Foot  Guards 

2887 

1st  Batt.  Peninsular  Field 

(2  batts.) 

Army  ;  2nd  Batt.  Home 

N.B. — The  Second  Batts.  Coldstream  and  3-d  Foot  Guards  both  sent  their 
flank  companies  to  Walcheren.  The  troops  sent  to  Cadiz  early  in  1810  were 
detachments,  viz.  4  companies  of  the  2/  1st  Guards,  3  of  the  2/2nd,  3  of  the  2/3rd. 


MISCELLANEOUS  CORPS. 

In  addition  to  the  regular  units  shown  in  these  lists,  there  are  on 
the  estimates  of  1809  twelve  veteran  battalions,  with  effectives 
ranging  from  693  to  1 129,  and  eight  garrison  battalions,  mostly  with 
an  establishment  of  906.  Most  of  these  were  at  home,  but  a  few  in 
the  Mediterranean  garrisons.  { 

There  were  also  the  foreign  corps  of  Meuron,  de  Roll,  Watteville, 
Dillon,  Chasseurs  Britanniques,  Royal  Malta,  Royal  Corsicans  and 
the  Sicilian  regiment,  all  in  the  Mediterranean,  with  the  York  Light 
Infantry,  York  Rangers,  and  Royal  West  India  Rangers  in  the 
West  Indies.  These  were  all  single  battalion  corps  ranging  from 
1361  men  (deRoll)  to  694  (York  L.  I.).  The  black  regiments,  eight 
West  India  battalions  with  1125  men  each,  could  only  be  used  in 
their  own  regions. 

Of  the  King’s  German  Legion  there  were  at  home  the  two  Heavy 
Dragoon  Regiments  with  an  establishment  of  694  each,  and  the  2nd 
and  3rd  Hussars,  with  the  same  numbers.  The  3rd  Hussars  were 
just  back  from  the  Corunna  Retreat :  the  2nd  went  to  Walcheren. 
Of  the  ten  infantry  battalions,  four  (1st,  2nd,  5th,  7th  Line)  were 
with  the  Peninsular  Field  Army,  as  was  the  1st  Hussars;  four  (3rd, 
4th,  6th,  8th  Line)  were  in  Sicily ;  1st  and  2nd  Light  battalions  (just 
back  from  Corunna)  were  at  home,  and  went  to  Walcheren:  Four 
battalions  had  establishments  of  1062,  six  of  902,  of  all  ranks, 


APPENDIX  II 


DIVISIONAL  AND  BRIGADE  ORGANIZATION  AND 
CHANGES. 

1809—1814. 

By  C.  T.  Atkinson,  M.A.,  Bellow  and  Tutor  of  Exeter  College, 

Oxford. 

1809. 

On  April  22,  when  Wellesley  arrived  the  troops  were  brigaded  as 
follows : — 

Cavalry.  G.O.C.,  Cotton.  14th  Light  Dragoons,  16th  Light 
Dragoons,  2  squadrons  20th  Light  Dragoons,  detachment 
3rd  Hussars  K.G.L. :  Fane’s  brigade  (not  at  the  Douro),  3rd 
Dragoon  Guards,  4th  Dragoons. 

Guards’  Brigade  (H.  Campbell).  1st  Coldstream,  1st  3rd 
Guards  (i.e.  Scots),  1  co.  5/60th. 

1st  Brigade  (Hill).  l/3rd,  2/48th.  2/66th,  1  co.  5/60th. 

2nd  Brigade  (Mackenzie).  2/24th  (attached),  3/27th,  2/31st, 
1 /45th. 

3rd  Brigade  (Tilson).  Headquarters  and  5  cos.  5/G0th,  2/87th, 
1 /88th. 

4th  Brigade  (Sontag).  97th,  2nd  Detachments,  1  co.  5/G0th. 

5th  Brigade  (A.  Campbell).  2/'7th,  2/53rd,  1  co.  5/G0th. 

6th  Brigade  (R.  Stewart).  29th,  1st  Detachments. 

7th  Brigade  (Cameron).  2/9th,  2/83rd,  1  co.  5/GOth. 

K.G.L.  (Murray,  Langwerth  and  Drieberg).  1st,  2nd,  5th,  and 
7th  Line  K.G.L.,  detachment  Light  Battalions  K.G.L. 

The  3rd,  4th,  5th,  Gth  and  7th  Brigades  each  included  a  Portuguese 
battalion. 

[N.B. — The  “  Battalions  of  Detachments  ”  were  composed  of 
convalescents  and  stragglers,  left  behind  from  the  regiments 


344  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


whioh  had  marched  from  Portugal  under  Sir  John  Moore  in 
the  preceding  autumn.] 

The  organization  in  divisions  dates  from  June  18.  It  was  originally 
as  follows : — 

Cavalry.  G.O.C.,  Payne.  A  [Fane],  3rd  Dragoon  Guards,  4th 
Dragoons ;  B  [Cotton],  14th  and  16th  Light  Dragoons ; 
Unattached,  2  squadrons  20th  Light  Dragoons,  23rd  Light 
Dragoons,  1st  Hussars  K.G.L.,  detachment  3rd  Hussars 
K.G.L. 


1st  Division.  G.O.C.,  Sherbrooke.  A  [H.  Campbell],  1st 
Coldstream,  1st  Scots ;  B  [Cameron],  2/9th,  2/83rd ; 
C  [Langwerth],  1st  and  2nd  Line  K.G.L.,  detachment  Light 
Battalions  K.G.L. ;  D  [Low],  5th  and  7th  Line  K.G.L. 

2nd  Division.  G.O.C.,  Hill.  A  [Hill],  l/3rd,  2/48th,  3/66th ; 
B  [R.  Stewart],  29th,  1st  Detachments. 

3 rd  Division.  G.O.C.,  Mackenzie.  A  [Mackenzie]  3/27th,  2/31st, 
l/45th ;  B  [Tilson],  5  companies  5/60th,  2/87th,  l/88th. 

4th  Division.  G.O.C.,  A.  Campbell.  A  [A.  Campbell],  2/7th, 
2/53rd ;  B  [Sontag],  97th,  2nd  Detachments. 

The  detached  companies  of  5/60th  at  Talavera  were  with 
I  A,  I  B,  II  A,  IV  A,  IV  B. 

Subsequent  changes  were  as  follows  : — 

Cavalry.  20th  Light  Dragoons  and  detachment  3rd  Hussars 
K.G.L.,  left  the  Peninsula  before  the  end  of  July. 

By  June  21  a  new  brigade,  C,  was  added,  under  G.  Anson, 
composed  of  23rd  Light  Dragoons  and  1st  Hussars  K.G.L. 

On  November  1  Granby  Calcroft  was  commanding  A  for 
Fane,  absent. 

By  November  24  1st  Dragoons  (who  arrived  at  Lisbon 
in  October)  replaced  the  16th  Light  Dragoons  in  B,  now 
under  Slade,  as  Cotton  was  assisting  Payne  in  command  of 
the  division ;  16th  Light  Dragoons  were  transferred  to 
C  vice  23rd  Light  Dragoons,  ordered  home  after  their 
losses  at  Talavera. 

Is!  Division.  1  /40th,  from  Seville,  replaced  2/9th  before  June  21, 
2/9th  going  to  Gibraltar  and  relieving  l/61st,  who  joined 
before  Talavera,  on  which  1  /40th  were  transferred  to  IV  B. 


Changes  in  1809  345 

After  Talavera  2/24th  and  2/42nd  were  added  to  I  B, 
2/83rd  being  sent  down  to  Lisbon. 

At  Talavera,  H.  Campbell  was  wounded,  Stopford  re¬ 
placing  him  in  command  of  the  division  and  brigade,  but 
from  November  8  to  December  15,  Hulse  had  the  brigade. 
Langwerth  having  been  killed  at  Talavera,  Beck  of  1st 
Line  K.G.L.  succeeded  to  his  brigade,  but  the  two  K.G.L. 
brigades  were  amalgamated  under  Low  from  November  1. 

2nd  Division.  By  June  21  Tilson  (from  III  B)  had  taken  over 
Hill’s  own  brigade.  Before  Talavera  l/48th  (arrived  at 
Lisbon  June  22,  on  being  relieved  at  Gibraltar  by  2/30th) 
had  been  added  to  II  B. 

In  September,  a  new  brigade,  C,  under  Catlin  Craufurd, 
was  added,  composed  of  2/28th,  2/34th,  2/39th,  and  about 
the  same  time  2/31st  (from  III  A)  was  added  to  II  A.  By 
November  1,  l/57th  (from  Gibraltar)  replaced  1st  Detach¬ 
ments  in  II  B,  the  Battalions  of  Detachments  having  been 
broken  up. 

From  December  15  on  II  A  was  under  command  of 
Duckworth  of  2/48th. 

3rd  Division.  Tilson,  moving  to  II  A,  was  replaced  by  Donkin 
(June  21). 

Before  Talavera  2/24th  replaced  3/27tk  (sent  down  to 
Lisbon)  in  III  A. 

Mackenzie  was  killed  at  Talavera,  and  the  division  passed 
under  the  command  of  R.  Craufurd,  whose  brigade,  l/43rd, 
l/52nd  and  1  /95th,  arrived  just  too  late  for  the  battle,  and 
was  apparently  added  to  the  division  in  place  of  Mackenzie’s 
brigade  which  was  amalgamated  with  Donkin’s.  On 
September  15,  2/87th  was  ordered  down  to  Lisbon  for 
garrison  duty,  2/24th  being  transferred  to  II  B  and  2/31st 
to  II  A  about  the  same  time. 

In  October,  Donkin  gave  up  his  brigade,  Mackinnon 
obtaining  command. 

4 th  Division.  Myers  of  2/7th  seems  to  have  commanded  IV  A 
for  A.  Campbell. 

By  Talavera  l/40th  had  been  added  to  IV  B,  of  which 
Kemmis  had  taken  command  vice  Sontag. 

At  Talavera  A.  Campbell  was  wounded,  and  had  to  go 


346  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


home,  the  division  being  without  a  definite  G.O.C.  till  the 
arrival  of  Lowry  Colo  in  October. 

In  September  1/1 1th  (arrived  at  Lisbon  from  Madeira  in 
August)  was  added  to  IV  A.  On  the  Battalions  of  Detach¬ 
ments  being  sent  home  (October),  3/27th,  in  garrison  at 
Lisbon  since  after  the  Douro,  replaced  the  2nd  Battalion  in 
IV  B. 


1810. 

On  January  1,  the  composition  of  the  Army  was  as  follows  : — 

Cavalry.  G.O.C.,  Payne  ;  Cotton,  second  in  command. 

A  [Fane],  3rd  Dragoon  Guards,  4th  Dragoons  ;  B  [Slade], 
1st  Dragoons,  14th  Light  Dragoons ;  C  [G.  Anson],  16th 
Light  Dragoons,  1st  Hussars  K.G.L. 

Is/  Division.  G.O.C.,  Sherbrooke.  A  [Stopford],  1st  Coldstreams, 
1st  Scots;  B  [A.  Cameron],  2/24th,  2/42nd,  l/61st;  C 
[Low],  1st,  2nd,  5th,  and  7th  Line,  K.G.L.,  detachment 
Light  Battalions,  K.G.L. 

2nd  Division.  G.O.C.,  Hill.  A  [Duckworth,  temporarily], 
1  /3rd,  2/31st,  2/48th,  2/66th  ;  B  [R.  Stewart],  29th,  l/48th, 
l/57th  ;  C  [C.  Craufurd],  2/28th,  2/34th,  2/39th. 

3rd  Division.  G.O.C.,  R.  Craufurd.  A  [R.  Craufurd],  l/43rd, 
l/52nd,  l/95th  ;  B  [Mackinnon],  1  /45th,  5/60th,  l/88th. 

4th  Division.  G.O.C.,  Cole.  A  [Myers  acting  for  Cole],  2/7th, 
1  /11th,  2/53rd ;  B  [Kemmis]  3/27th,  l/40th,  97th;  C 
[Lightburne],  2/5th,  2/58th.* 

Subsequent  changes  were  : — 

Cavalry.  Payne  went  home  before  June  1,  Cotton  obtaining 
sole  command  from  June  3. 

On  April  1  the  13th  Light  Dragoons  arrived  at  Lisbon, 
joining  the  army  in  May,  and  being  attached  to  Hill’s 
division,  along  with  four  regiments  of  Portuguese  cavalry, 
the  whole  under  Fane,  who  gave  over  his  brigade  to  de  Grey 
from  May  13.  Two  troops  of  the  regiment  went  to  Cadiz, 
but  rejoined  the  regiment  in  September. 

*  This  brigade  was  added  to  IV  on  January  2. 


Changes  in  1810  347 

Before  the  end  of  the  year  Fane  seems  to  have  gone 
home  ill. 

1st  Division.  On  April  26  Cotton  was  posted  to  the  command 
of  the  division,  vice  Sherbrooke,  gone  home  ill,  but  gave 
place  to  Spencer,  June  3,  on  getting  the  Cavalry  Division. 

In  the  “  States  ”  of  March  8  to  August  1,  no  brigadier 
is  given  for  I  B.  On  August  4  Lord  Blantyre  (of  2/42nd) 
was  appointed  to  command  I  B  “  during  the  absence  of 
Brigadier-General  Cameron.”  Cameron  was  back  in  com¬ 
mand  from  October  1,  but  on  November  26  he  was  invalided 
home,  Blantyre  probably  commanding  again. 

By  the  Orders  of  September  12,  1  /79th  (just  arrived  from 
Cadiz),  was  posted  to  I  B  vice  l/61st,  to  be  transferred  to 
a  new  brigade  to  form  part  of  the  1st  Division.  These  orders 
were  suspended  from  September  14,  and  at  Bussaco  1  /7th 
(arrived  from  Halifax  before  end  of  July),  and  1 /79th  formed 
a  brigade  (I  D)  under  Pakenham. 

On  October  6,  orders  were  given  for  the  transfer  of 
Pakenham’s  brigade  to  the  4th  Division,  the  exchange 
between  the  1  /61st  and  1  /79th  having  been  carried  out 
previously,  and  a  new  brigade  was  added  under  Erskine, 
comprising  l/50th  (arrived  September  24),  l/71st  (arrived 
September  26),  l/92nd  (arrived  in  October,  before  the  6th), 
and  1  company  3/95th. 

2nd  Division.  On  June  20  Leith  was  appointed  to  command 
“  Tilson’s  brigade,”  and  to  command  the  division  “  under 
Hill,”  but  in  the  “  State  ”  of  July  8  his  name  appears  as  com¬ 
manding  the  brigade  composed  of  3/lst,  l/9th,  and  2/38th. 
On  August  8  orders  were  issued  to  W.  Stewart  to  take 
command  of  Tilson’s  brigade  and  of  the  division  under  Hill. 
In  November  Hill  went  on  sick  leave. 

Leith’s  name  ceases  to  appear  in  the  returns  as  com¬ 
manding  II  A  from  July  8,  and  W.  Stewart's  name  appears 
in  his  place  from  July  27.  When  Stewart  commanded 
the  division,  Colborne  of  2/66th  had  the  brigade.  C.  Craufurd 
died  in  September,  and  at  Bussaco  Wilson  of  2/39th  com¬ 
manded  II  C.  On  September  30  Lumley  was  posted  to 
command  it. 

Before  September  1  R,  Stewart  had  gone  home  ill,  and 


348  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


at  Bussaco  Inglis  (of  l/57th)  commanded  II  B.  On  October 
8  Hoghton  was  posted  to  it. 

3rd  Division.  From  January  8  on  5/60th  no  longer  appear  in 
the  Returns  as  belonging  to  the  division,  and  their  place  in  the 
brigade  was  taken  by  74th,  who  arrived  at  Lisbon  February  8, 
and  are  mentioned  in  Orders  on  February  22  as  in  III  B. 

On  February  22  the  division  was  reorganized,  R. 
Craufurd’s  brigade  becoming,  with  two  battalions  of  Caja- 
dores,  the  Light  Division.  Mackinnon’s  brigade  now  became 
III  A,  and  Lightburne’s  brigade  was  transferred  from  the 
4th  Division  and  became  III  B.  The  headquarters 
and  three  companies  5/60th  were  posted  to  Lightburne’s 
brigade,  the  remaining  companies  having  been  posted  to 
I  A,  I  B,  II  A,  II  B,  II  C,  IV  A,  IV  B.  At  the  same 
time  a  Portuguese  brigade  composed  of  the  9th  and  21st 
Regiments  (under  Harvey)  was  added  to  the  division. 

At  Bussaco  Champlemond  was  in  command  of  the  Portu¬ 
guese  brigade,  by  October  29  Sutton  had  it,  Champlemond 
being  wounded  at  Bussaco. 

On  September  12  2/83rd  was  posted  to  III  B,  2/88th 
having  arrived  from  Cadiz  to  relieve  them  September  4. 
Hurrying  to  the  front  they  joined  their  brigade  before  Bussaco. 
When  they  did  join,  2/58th  was  detached  from  III  B  for 
garrison  duty  at  Lisbon.  94th  (arrived  from  Cadiz  September 
20),  were  added  to  III  B  on  October  6,  and  on  October  10 
Colville  was  posted  to  command  the  brigade  vice  Lightburne, 
who  went  home. 

4 th  Division.  On  the  transfer  of  Lightburne’s  brigade  to  the 
3rd  Division  the  other  two  brigades  exchanged  places, 
Kemmis’  becoming  IV  A,  and  being  Cole’s  brigade,  but 
under  the  immediate  command  of  Kemmis.  A  Campbell, 
who  had  rejoined,  took  command  of  his  old  brigade. 

The  3rd  and  15th  Portuguese  were  added  to  the  division 
in  February,  as  a  brigade  under  Collins. 

At  Bussaco  the  Portuguese  brigade  consisted  of  the  11th 
and  23rd,  the  3rd  and  15th  having  been  removed  to  the 
5th  Division. 

On  October  6  A.  Campbell’s  brigade  was  removed  from 
the  division  to  become  the  nucleus  of  the  newly-formed 
6th  Division,  its  place  being  taken  by  Pakenham’s  from  the 


Changes  in  1810 


349 


1st  Division,  i.e.  1  /7th,  l/6Ist,  to  which  the  Brunswick 
Oels  Light  Infantry  (arrived  Lisbon  September  17)  were 
added. 

On  November  12  the  Brunswick  Oels  were  removed  to 
the  Light  Division,  but  one  company  was  posted  to  IV  B, 
two  more  being  detached  to  provide  the  newly-formed  5th 
Division,  with  extra  light  troops.  Their  place  in  IV  B 
was  taken  by  the  newly  arrived  l/23rd  from  Halifax,  Nova 
Scotia. 

On  November  17  2/7th  and  1  /61st  were  ordered  to 
exchange,  IV  B  thus  becoming  the  Fusilier  Brigade. 

Light  Division.  Formed  on  February  22  by  the  removal  of 
R.  Craufurd’s  brigade  from  the  3rd  Division,  the  1st  and 
3rd  Portuguese  Ca£adores  being  added  to  it.  On  August  4 
it  was  broken  up  into  two  brigades,  as  follows  :  A  [Beckwith 
of  l/95th]  l/43rd,  4  companies  l/95th,  1st  Cayadores ;  B 
[Barclay  of  l/52nd]  l/52nd,  4  companies  l/95th,  3rd  Caya- 
dores.  Barclay  having  been  wounded  at  Bussaco,  Wynch 
of  l/4th  got  the  brigade  (hi  Orders  of  November  14th). 

A  company  of  2 /95th  (from  Cadiz)  was  added  to  A  before 
October  1.  On  November  12  nine  companies  Brunswick  Oels 
joined  B. 

5th  Division.  Officially  this  division  first  appears  in  the  “  State  ” 
of  August  8,  when  the  3/lst,  l/9th,  and  2/38th,*  are  first 
called  the  “  Fifth  Division,”  a  Portuguese  brigade,  Spry’s 
(i.e.  3rd  and  15th  Line),  being  added,  and  Leith  being 
G.O.C. 

On  August  4  J.  S.  Barns  of  3/lst  was  appointed  to 
command  the  British  brigade,  being  superseded  by  Hay 
September  30. 

On  October  6  orders  were  issued  that  Leith  should  com¬ 
mand  the  5th  Division,  and  that  it  should  be  composed 
of  Brigadier- General  Hay’s  brigade,  a  brigade  made  up  of 
1  /4th  (from  England,  they  first  appear  in  the  “  State  ”  of 
November  15),  2/30th  (from  Cadiz),  and  2/44th  (from  Cadiz), 
and  Spry’s  Portuguese. 

*  These  regiments  had  arrived  at  Lisbon  in  April,  but  having 
been  at  Walcheren  were  not  at  first  sent  into  the  field  till  July, 
since  the  8th  of  which  month  they  had  been  shown  as  a  brigade 
under  Leith. 


350  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


On  November  5  Dunlop  was  posted  to  V  B,  hitherto 
under  its  senior  battalion  commander. 

On  November  12  a  company  of  the  Brunswick  Oels  was 
posted  to  eaoli  of  the  British  brigades. 

0 Hi  Division.  Ordered  to  be  formed  Ootober  6,  by  taking  A. 
Campbell’s  brigade  out  of  the  4th  Division  and  adding 
Eben’s  Portuguese  (i.e.  8th  Lino  and  Lusitanian  Legion) 
to  it :  A.  Campbell  being  G.O.C. 

On  November  14,  Hulse  was  posted  to  A.  Campbell’s 
brigade. 

On  November  17  l/61st  from  IV  B  exchanged  with  2/7th. 

In  addition  to  the  Portuguese  brigades  attached  to  the 
3rd,  4th,  5th,  and  6th  Divisions  there  were  at  least  five 
others,  two  of  which,  the  4th  under  Archibald  Campbell 
( =  4th  and  10th  Line),  and  2nd  under  Fonseca  ( =  2nd  and  14th 
Line)  formed  a  division  under  Hamilton,  which  acted  through¬ 
out  under  Hill.  Wellington  says  that  he  intended  to  organizo 
this  division  like  the  rest,  but  the  heavy  losses  at  Albuera 
and  the  consequent  necessity  of  reforming  the  2nd  Division 
made  it  impossible  for  him  to  carry  out  his  resolve.  [Cf. 
Wellington  Dispatches,  viii.  111.] 

The  remaining  brigades  were  the  1st  (Pack’s),  consisting 
of  the  1st  and  16th  Line  and  4th  Ca9adores,  the  5th  (A. 
Campbell’s),  6th  and  18th  Line,  and  6th  Ca9adores;  the  6th 
(Coleman’s),  7th  and  19th  Line  and  2nd  Cay  adores.  On 
the  formation  of  the  7th  Division  in  March,  1811,  Coleman’s 
brigade  was  posted  to  it,  the  other  two  remaining  unattached. 

The  12th  and  13th  Line  and  5th  Cayadores  seem  to  have 
formed  yet  another  brigade  under  Bradford,  but  in  October 
the  13th  Line  was  in  garrison  at  Abrantes. 

Spry’s  brigade  ranked  at  the  3rd,  Eben’s  as  the  7th, 
Sutton’s  as  the  8th,  and  Collins’  as  the  9th. 

1811. 

On  January  1  the  Army  was  organized  as  follows 

Cavalry.  G.O.C.,  Cotton.  A  [de  Grey],  3rd  Dragoon  Guards, 
4th  Dragoons  ;  B.  [Slade],  1st  Dragoons,  14th  Light  Dragoons ; 
C  [G.  Anson],  16th  Light  Dragoons,  1st  Hussars,  K.G.L. ; 
unbrigaded,  13th  Light  Dragoons. 


351 


State  of  January  1,  1811 

ls£  Division.  G.O.C.,  Spencer.  A  [Stopford],  1st  Coldstream, 
1st  Scots,  1  company  5/60th  ;  B  [?  Blantyre,  acting],  2/24th, 
2/42nd,  l/79th,  1  company  5/60th ;  C  [Low],  1st,  2nd,  5th, 
and  7th  Line,  K.G.L.,  detachment  Light  Battalions,  K.G.L.  ; 
D  [Erskine],  1  /50th,  1  /71st,  l/92nd,  1  company  3/95th. 

‘2nd  Division.  G.O.C.,  W.  Stewart.  A  [Colborne],  l/3rd,  2/31st, 
2/48th,  2/66th,  1  company  5/60th ;  B  [Hoghton],  29th, 
l/48th,  1/57 th,  1  company  5/60th ;  C  [Lumley],  2/28th, 
2/34th,  2/39th,  1  company  5/60th. 

3rd  Division.  G.O.C.,  Picton.  A  [Mackinnon],  l/45th,  1  /74th, 
1  /88th  ;  B  [Colville],  2/5th,  3  companies  5/60th,  2/83rd, 
94th ;  also  Sutton’s  Portuguese. 

4 th  Division.  G.O.C.,  Cole.  A.  [Kemrnis],  3/27th,  1  /40th,  97th, 
1  company  5/00th ;  B  [Pakenham],  l/7th,  2/7th,  l/23rd, 
1  company  Brunswick  Ocls ;  also  Collins’  Portuguese. 

5 th  Division.  G.O.C.,  Leith.  A  [Hay],  3/lst,  1  /9th,  2/38th,  1 
company  Brunswick  Oels ;  B  [Dunlop],  1  /4th,  2/30th, 
2/44th,  1  company  Brunswick  Oels ;  also  Spry's  Portu¬ 
guese. 

(3 th  Division.  G.O.C.,  A.  Campbell.  A  [Hulse],  1/1  lth,  2/53rd, 
1  /61st,  1  company  5/60th;  also  Eben’s  Portuguese. 

Light  Division.  G.O.C.,  R.  Craufurd.  A  [Beckwith],  l/43rd, 
4  companies  l/95th,  1  company  2/95th,  1st  Caeadorcs ; 
B  [Wynch],  l/52nd,  4  companies  l/95th,  Brunswick  Oels, 
3rd  Cayadores. 

Portuguese.  Hamilton’s  Division,  brigades  under  Fonseca  (2nd) 
and  Archibald  Campbell  (4th).  Unattached  brigades  under 
Pack  (1st),  Ashworth,  late  A.  Campbell  (5th),  Coleman  (6th), 
and  Bradford  (10th). 

Subsequent  changes  were  : — 

Cavalry.  Cotton  went  home  January  15,  returning  April  22 ; 
in  his  absence  Slade  commanded  the  division  until  March 
7,  when  Erskine  seems  to  have  been  placed  in  command 
of  both  the  Cavalry  and  the  Light  Division.  While  Slade 
had  the  division,  his  brigade  was  apparently  under  Hawker 
of  14th  Light  Dragoons,  and  from  March  1  to  May  15,  G.  Anson 


352  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


being  absent,  Arentschildt  of  1st  K.G.L.  Hussars,  com¬ 
manded  C. 

On  March  19  Long  was  posted  to  command  the  cavalry 
of  the  force  usually  under  Hill,  but  commanded  by  Beresford 
during  Hill’s  absence.  At  Albuera  Lumley  (of  II  C)  was 
in  command  of  Beresford’s  cavalry,  Long’s  conduct  not 
having  given  satisfaction  to  the  Marshal.  On  May  11  Erskine 
was  appointed  to  command  “  the  cavalry  south  of  the  Tagus.” 

On  June  13  a  new  brigade,  D,  was  formed  under  Long, 
composed  of  13th  Light  Dragoons  and  2nd  Hussars  K.G.L., 
two  squadrons  of  which  had  landed  April  8.  On  June  18 
the  11th  Light  Dragoons  (arrived  June  1)  replaced  the  13th, 
transferred  to  Slade’s  brigade. 

On  June  19  a  reorganization  of  the  cavalry  in  two  divi¬ 
sions  was  ordered,  as  follows  : — 

1st  Cavalry  Division.  G.O.C.,  Cotton.  B  [Slade],  1st 
Dragoons,  13th  and  14th  Light  Dragoons;  C  [G.  Anson], 
16th  Light  Dragoons,  1st  Hussars,  K.G.L. ;  also 
Madden’s  Portuguese. 

2nd  Cavalry  Division.  G.O.C.,  Erskine.  A  [de  Grey], 
3rd  Dragoon  Guards,  4th  Dragoons ;  D  [Long], 
11th  Light  Dragoons,  2nd  Hussars,  K.G.L. 

On  July  19  another  reorganization  took  place,  the 
final  result  being  as  follows  : — 

1st  Cavalry  Division.  G.O.C.,  Cotton.  B  [Slade],  1st 
Dragoons,  12th  Light  Dragoons  (arrived  July  1), 
vice  13th  (to  C)  and  14th  (to  D) ;  C  [G.  Anson], 
13th  and  16th  Light  Dragoons ;  E  [V.  Alten,  a  new 
brigade],  11th  Light  Dragoons  (from  D)  and  1st 
Hussars,  K.G.L.  (from  C) ;  Madden’s  Portuguese. 

2nd  Cavalry  Division.  A  [de  Grey],  3rd  Dragoon  Guards, 
4th  Dragoons ;  D  [Long],  14th  Light  Dragoons,  2nd 
Hussars,  K.G.L. 

On  August  1,  9th  Light  Dragoons  (newly  arrived)  were 
posted  to  Long’s  brigade,  together  with  13th  Light  Dragoons, 
which  exchanged  from  C  with  14th. 

On  August  30,  a  new  brigade,  E,  was  added,  comprising 
4th  Dragoon  Guards,  arrived  August  15,  and  3rd  Dragoons, 
arrived  before  August  20,  its  commander  being  Le  Marchant. 
By  October  1,  5th  Dragoon  Guards  had  been  added  to  this 
brigade. 


Changes  in  1811 


353 


On  October  5  de  Grey’s  brigade  was  transferred  to  the  1st 
Cavalry  Division,  to  which  Le  Marchant’s  was  attached  by 
Orders  of  November  8,  the  Portuguese  brigade  being  struck 
off  that  division. 

From  December  8  on  the  States  do  not  give  any  G.O.C. 
for  the  2nd  Cavalry  Division. 

ls<  Division.  On  January  23  Nightingale  was  posted  to  I  B: 
on  February  6  Howard  obtained  I  D,  when  Erskine  was 
transferred  to  the  command  of  the  5th  Division.  On  June  8 
H.  Campbell’s  name  is  given  in  the  “  State  ”  as  in  command 
of  I  A,  Stopford  being  transferred  to  IV  B  (in  Orders  for 
this  June  18).  Nightingale  departing  to  Bengal  before 
June  25  his  brigade  had  no  permanent  commander  till 
July  28,  when  Stopford  got  it. 

Owing  to  the  heavy  losses  of  the  2nd  Division  at  Albuera 
and  its  consequent  reconstruction,  Howard’s  brigade  was 
transferred  to  it  on  June  6,  and  at  the  same  time  the  detach¬ 
ment  of  the  Light  Battalions  of  the  K.G.L.,  hitherto  in  I  C, 
rejoined  those  battalions,  which  had  been  posted  to  VII  A. 

On  June  26  orders  were  issued  for  the  7th  Line  K.G.L., 
to  go  home,  its  rank  and  file  being  drafted  into  the  other 
three  battalions.  On  July  21  l/26th  were  added  to  I  B, 
having  recently  arrived  from  England. 

On  August  9,  Graham  was  appointed  to  command  the 
division,  Spencer  having  gone  home  in  July,  he  received 
leave  July  25.  From  December  1  onward  I  B  appears  in 
the  “  States  ”  as  having  no  G.O.C. 

2nd  Division.  The  heavy  losses  at  Albuera  led  to  the  re¬ 
organization  of  the  division,  detailed  in  Orders  June  6. 
Howard’s  brigade  of  the  1st  Division  was  transferred  to  the 
2nd  Division,  becoming  II.  A.  The  remainder  of  the 
brigades  of  Colborne  and  Hoghton  (who  was  killed)  were 
formed  into  a  Provisional  Battalion,  less  l/48th  and  2/48th  ; 
1  /48th,  to  which  the  rank  and  file  of  2/48th  were  drafted 
(the  cadre  of  2/48th  going  home),  was  transferred  to  IV  B. 

This  Provisional  Battalion  was  placed  in  Lumley’s 
brigade,  of  which  Abercromby  (of  2/28th)  had  had  temporary 
command  at  Albuera,  while  Lumley  was  in  charge  of  the 
cavalry.  At  the  same  time,  Ashworth’s  Portuguese  brigade 

2  A 


354  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


was  definitely  attached  to  it:  this  was  the  5th  Brigade, 
which  had  been  under  A.  Campbell  in  October,  1810,  but 
had  come  under  Ashworth  by  March  11;  it  comprised  the 
6th  and  18th  Line  and  6th  Cagadores.  Cf.  also  Wellington 
Dispatches,  viii,  566,  and  S.  D.  vii.  135. 

Before  the  end  of  May  Hill  returned  and  took  over 
command  of  the  division,  as  well  as  of  the  whole  force  com¬ 
manded  by  Beresford  at  Albuera. 

On  July  22  1 /28th  (newly  arrived  from  Gibraltar)  was 
posted  to  Lumley’s  brigade. 

On  August  7  orders  were  issued  for  l/3rd  and  l/57th  to 
resume  their  separate  formations,  large  drafts  having  arrived 
from  their  second  battalions  in  England.  The  division  was 
again  formed  in  three  brigades,  Howard’s  being  II  A,  and 
l/3rd,  l/57th,  and  the  Provisional  Battalion,  [i.e.  29th 
(3  companies),  2/31st  (4  companies)  and  2/66th  (3  companies)] 
forming  II  B,  apparently  under  Inglis  of  l/57th,  while  l/28tli, 
2  28th,  2/34th,  and  2/39th  under  Lumley  formed  II  C. 

On  August  21  2/28th  was  drafted  into  l/28th,  and  sent 
home,  and  the  company  3/95th,  hitherto  in  Howard’s  brigade, 
were  transferred  to  Beckwith’s  brigade  of  the  Light  Division, 
being  replaced  in  II  A  by  a  company  of  5/60th,  there  being 
three  with  the  division. 

On  September  21  Byng  was  posted  to  command  II  B, 
and  on  October  9  Wilson  was  appointed  to  command  II  C, 
Lumley  having  gone  home  sick  early  in  August. 

On  October  3  orders  were  issued  for  29th  to  go  home  to 
recruit  ;  on  October  20  l/39th,  just  arrived  from  Sicily, 
was  added  to  II C,  2/39th  being  drafted  into  it  and  sent  home 
by  Orders  issued  December  17. 

3rd  Division.  Orders  of  March  5  direct  the  transfer  of  the 
headquarter  companies  5/60th  to  III  A,  2/88th,  on  garrison 
duty  at  Lisbon  since  September  4, 1810,  being  added  to  III  B. 
On  July  10, 2/88th  was  ordered  to  be  drafted  into  l/88th,  and 
the  cadre  sent  home. 

On  July  22  the  77th  were  added  to  III  B. 

From  July  1  to  October  31  Mackinnon  was  absent  from 
his  brigade,  ill,  Wallace  of  1  /88th  commanding  it  in  his 
place. 


Changes  in  1811 


355 


On  December  22  Colville  was  transferred  to  the  command 
of  the  4th  Division,  in  Cole’s  absence  on  leave,  J.  Campbell 
of  the  94th  getting  III  B. 

Champlemond  had  the  Portuguese  brigade  on  March  1 9  ; 
but  by  Puentes  Power  had  it. 


4th  Division.  By  February  1  the  headquarters  and  9  companies 
Brunswick  Oels  had  been  added  to  IV  A,  having  been 
removed  from  the  Light  Division,  but  on  the  forma¬ 
tion  of  the  7th  Division  (March  5),  they  were  removed 
to  it. 

On  January  23  Houston  was  appointed  to  IV  B  vice 
Pakenham,  but  left  the  brigade  again  March  5,  on  being 
appointed  to  command  the  7th  Division :  Myers  would 
seem  to  have  commanded  IV  B  till  Albuera,  where  he  was 
killed.  On  June  18  Stopford  was  appointed  to  command 
IV  B,  but  was  transferred  to  I  B  on  July  28,  Pakenham 
again  getting  IV  B.  Prom  November  15  onwards  the 
“  States  ”  do  not  give  any  brigadier  for  IV  B,  but  it  continued 
to  be  described  as  “  Pakenham’s.” 

After  Albuera  2/7th  was  drafted  into  l/7th,  the  remnants 
being  sent  home  June  26;  l/48th  from  the  2nd  Division 
was  added  to  IV  B  June  6.  On  October  3,  the  97th,  a  single 
battalion  regiment,  was  ordered  home  in  consequence  of  its 
severe  losses. 

On  December  22  Colville  was  appointed  to  command 
the  division,  Cole  having  gone  home  ill. 

At  Albuera  Harvey  was  in  command  of  the  Portuguese 
brigade  of  the  division,  to  which  1st  battalion  Loyal  Lusi- 
tanian  Legion  had  been  added  on  March  14:  by  September 
this  unit  was  renamed  7th  Ca9adores,  the  brigade  was  then 
again  under  Collins,  who  at  Albuera  had  led  a  provisional 
brigade  from  the  Elvas  garrison  [5th  Line,  5th  Cagadores], 


5 th  Division.  From  February  1  to  February  6  the  division  was 
without  a  G.O.C.,  Leith  being  absent :  on  February  6, 
Erskine  was  appointed  to  command  it,  but  was  transferred 
to  the  command  of  the  advanced  guard  (the  Light  Division 


356  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


and  cavalry),  from  March  7  to  April  22.  During  this  period 
Dunlop  seems  to  have  commanded  the  division,  Egerton 
of  2/44th  commanding  V  B. 

On  May  11  Erskine  was  appointed  to  the  2nd  Cavalry 
Division,  and  Dunlop  again  had  temporary  command  of 
the  division  until  October  2,  when  G.  T.  Walker  was  appointed 
to  command  his  brigade.  By  December  1  Leith  was  again 
in  command  of  the  division. 

On  March  14  the  2nd  Battalion  Loyal  Lusitanian  Legion 
had  been  added  to  Spry’s  Portuguese  brigade.  By  September 
it  had  been  renamed  8th  Cagadores. 

G th  Division.  Orders  of  March  5  directed  the  addition  to  the 
division  of  a  new  brigade  under  Burne  (of  l/36th),  com¬ 
prising  2nd  and  l/36th. 

If  seems  to  have  been  intended  to  put  the  Brunswick 
Oels  into  the  6th  Division,  but  on  the  formation  of  the 
7th  Division  (March  5),  they  were  put  in  C.  Alten’s  brigade. 

On  July  21  l/32nd,  arrived  at  Lisbon  before  July  8,  was 
posted  to  VI  B. 

A.  Campbell  leaving  for  India  in  November,  the  division 
was  without  a  definite  G.O.C.  till  the  end  of  the  year,  Burne 
commanding  it  temporarily. 

On  March  14  the  Loyal  Lusitanian  Legion  was  removed 
from  the  Portuguese  brigade  of  the  division,  and  distributed 
as  Cagador  battalions  to  the  4th  and  5th  Divisions,  being 
replaced  by  the  12th  Line,  formerly  in  Bradford’s  brigade. 
At  Fuentes  Madden  commanded  the  brigade. 

Light  Division.  Wynch  dying  January  6,  the  2nd  Brigade  was 
without  a  commander  till  February  7,  when  Drummond  (of 
l/52nd)  was  appointed  to  it.  Craufurd  having  gone  home 
on  leave  before  February  8,  the  division  had  no  G.O.C., 
but  was  under  Erskine  from  March  7  on,  together  with  the 
Cavalry  who  also  were  in  the  advanced  guard. 

On  March  5  2/52nd,  newly  arrived  at  Lisbon,  was  added 
to  Drummond’s  brigade. 

R.  Craufurd  returned  April  22  and  took  over  the  division 
from  Erskine. 


Changes  in  1811 


357 


By  August  1  Beckwith  had  been  invalided  home,  Andrew 
Barnard  of  the  95th  commanding  the  brigade  in  his  place. 

On  August  21  the  headquarters  and  four  companies  of 
the  3/95th,  which  had  gone  out  to  Cadiz  in  1810,  arrived 
at  Lisbon,  and  were  added  to  the  1st  Brigade,  the  company 
3/95th  hitherto  with  II  A  being  also  added  to  the  same 
brigade. 

Drummond  dying  before  September  8,  Vandeleur  was 
appointed  to  the  vacant  brigade  on  September  30.  By 
October  1  another  company  2/95th  had  been  added  to  the 
1st  Brigade. 

1th  Division.  Orders  were  issued  on  March  5  for  the  formation 
of  this  division,  to  be  composed  of  two  British  brigades 
under  C.  Alten  and  Long,  and  Coleman’s  Portuguese,  i.e. 
7th  and  19th  Line  and  2nd  Cagadores.  The  composition  of  the 
British  brigades  is  not  given,  but  General  Orders  say  that  the 
Brunswick  Oels  should  be  in  Alten’s  brigade,  and  the  Chasseurs 
Britanniques  (arrived  at  Lisbon  from  Cadiz,  January  28) 
in  Long’s.  The  other  regiments  in  the  division  were  51st 
(arrived  during  February),  85th  (arrived  March  4),  which 
were  in  Long’s  brigade,  and  the  1st  and  2nd  Light  Battalions, 
K.G.L.,  in  Alten’s.  These  last  only  landed  on  March  21, 
and  did  not  join  the  division  till  it  came  down  with  Welling¬ 
ton  from  Almeida  to  the  Guadiana  Valley  for  the  second 
siege  of  Badajoz.  Till  then  they  had  been  attached  to  the 
force  under  Beresford:  Schwertfeger  (Geschichte  der  K.G.L., 
i.  317)  says  the  battalions  formed  part  of  the  2nd  Division,  but 
this  does  not  seem  accurate.  As  they  had  no  casualties  at 
the  siege  of  Badajoz,  in  which  the  7th  Division  suffered  severely, 
one  may  presume  that  they  finally  joined  the  division  after 
the  siege  was  raised. 

Thus  the  British  brigade  (at  first  there  was  only  one)  was 
51st,  85th,  Chasseurs  Britanniques,  Brunswick  Oels.  On 
March  31  Sontag  was  posted  to  it  vice  Long,  removed  to 
command  Beresford’s  cavalry,  March  19. 

On  July  19  68th  (just  arrived)  was  posted  to  VII  B. 

Houston  was  invalided  home  before  August  1,  Sontag 
commanding  the  division.  By  October  he  too  was  invalided 
(his  A.D.C.  received  orders  to  rejoin  his  regiment  on  October 


358  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


29).  Alten  was  in  temporary  command,  C.  Halkett  com¬ 
manding  his  brigade.  VII  B  was  without  a  G.O.C.  from 
October  15  till  de  Berne witz  got  it  on  December  23. 

On  October  3  85th  (a  single-battalion  regiment)  was 
ordered  to  go  homo  to  recruit. 

Le  Cor  was  posted  to  Coleman’s  brigade  on  March  14;  at 
Fuentes  Doyle  had  it. 

Portuguese.  No  changes  seem  to  have  taken  place  in  Hamilton’s 
division,  or  in  Pack’s  brigade,  but  the  other  unattached 
brigade  was  under  McMahon  in  September,  and  included  the 
13th  and  22nd  Lino  and  5th  Ca9adores,  the  12th  Line  having 
been  transferred  to  the  6th  Division. 

1812. 

On  January  1  the  organization  of  the  Army  was  as  follows  : — 

Cavalry.  1st  Division.  G.O.C.,  Cotton.  B  [Slade],  1st  Dragoons, 
12th  Light  Dragoons ;  C  [no  G.O.C.,  G.  Anson  absent], 
14th  and  16th  Light  Dragoons ;  E  [Cuming  of  11th  Light 
Dragoons  in  absence  of  V.  Alten],  11th  Light  Dragoons,  1st 
Hussars,  K.G.L. ;  A  [no  G.O.C.,  de  Grey  absent],  3rd 
Dragoon  Guards,  4th  Dragoons  ;  F  [Le  Marchant],  4th  and 
5th  Dragoon  Guards,  3rd  Dragoons. 

Cavalry.  2nd  Division.  No  G.O.C. ;  D  [Long],  9th  and  13th 
Light  Dragoons,  2nd  Hussars,  K.G.L. 

ls£  Division.  G.O.C.,  Graham.  A  [H.  Campbell],  1st  Cold- 
streams,  1st  Scots,  1  company  5/60th ;  B  [?  Blantyre  for 
Stopford],  2/24th,  l/26th,  2/42nd,  l/79th,  1  company  5/60th ; 
C  [Low],  1st,  2nd,  and  5th  Line,  K.G.L. 

2nd  Division.  G.O.C.,  Hill.  A  [Howard],  l/50th,  l/71st,  l/92nd 
1  company  5/60th ;  B  [Byng],  l/3rd,  l/57th,  1st  Provisional 
Battalion  ( i.e .  2/31st  and  2/66th),  1  company  5/60th ;  C 
[Wilson],  l/28th,  2/34th,  l/39th,  1  company  5/60th ;  also 
Ashworth’s  Portuguese. 

3rd  Division.  G.O.C.,  Picton.  A  [Mackinnon],  l/45th.  Head¬ 
quarters  5/60th,  74th,  1  /88th ;  B  [J.  Campbell  for  Colville], 
2/5th,  77th,  2/83rd,  94th ;  also  Palmeirim’s  Portuguese. 


Organization  on  January  1,  1812  359 

R/i  Division.  G.O.C.,  Colville  (for  Cole).  A  [Kemmis],  3/27th, 
l/40th,  1  company  5/60th  ;  B  [?  Pakenham],  l/7th,  l/23rd, 
l/48th,  1  company  Brunswiok  Oels ;  also  Collins’  Portu¬ 
guese. 

5th  Division.  G.O.C.,  Leith.  A  [Hay],  3/lst,  l/9th,  2/38th,  1 
company  Brunswick  Oels  ;  B  [Walker],  l/4th,  2/30tk,  2/44th, 
1  company  Brunswick  Oels ;  also  Spry’s  Portuguese. 

5th  Division.  No  G.O.C.,  Burne  in  temporary  charge.  A[Hulse], 
1/llth,  2/53rd,  l/61st,  1  company  5/60th  ;  B  [Burne],  2nd, 
l/32nd,  l/36th ;  also  Madden’s  [7]  Portuguese. 

1th  Division.  No  G.O.C.,  Alten  in  temporary  charge.  A  [C. 
Halkett  for  Alten],  1st  and  2nd  Light  Battalions,  K.G.L., 
Brunswick  Oels ;  B  [de  Bernewitz],  51st,  68th,  Chasseurs 
Britanniques :  also  Coleman’s  Portuguese. 

Light  Division.  G.O.C.,  R.  Craufurd.  A  [?  Barnard],  l/43rd, 
4  companies  l/95th,  2  companies  2/95th,  5  companies  3/95th, 
1st  Cagadores  ;  B  [Vandeleur],  l/52nd,  2/52nd,  4  companies 
l/95th,  3rd  Cagadores. 

Portuguese.  Hamilton’s  division,  with  brigades  under  Fonseca 
and  Arch.  Campbell.  Unattached  brigades  under  Pack  and 
MoMahon. 

Subsequent  changes  were  : — 

Cavalry.  On  January  1  the  1st  and  2nd  Dragoons,  K.G.L.,  under 
Bock  arrived  at  Lisbon :  they  remained  near  there  till 
March  12,  joining  the  army  at  Estremoz  March  23,  and 
being  reckoned  as  the  2nd  Brigade  (=  G)  of  the  2nd  Cavalry 
Division. 

By  January  8  V.  Alten  was  again  in  command  of  his 
brigade. 

Several  changes  took  place  under  orders  issued  January 
29  ;  the  3rd  and  4th  Dragoon  Guards  were  posted  to  Slade’s 
brigade,  from  which  the  12th  Light  Dragoons  were  removed 
to  G.  Anson’s,  the  4th  Dragoons  replaced  the  4th  Dragoon 
Guards  in  Le  Marchant’s,  and  de  Grey’s  brigade  disappeared. 
F.  Ponsonby  of  the  12th  Light  Dragoons  took  command  of 
C  in  Anson’s  absence. 

By  April  8  Erskine  had  resumed  command  of  the  2nd 


360  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


Cavalry  Division,  to  which  Slade’s  brigade  was  transferred 
April  14,  Bock’s  joining  the  1st  Division. 

On  July  1,  an  exchange  was  ordered  between  the  11th 
and  14th  Light  Dragoons:  G.  Anson,  who  had  resumed 
command  of  his  brigade,  having  11th,  12th  and  16th  Light 
Dragoons,  V.  Alten  14th  Light  Dragoons  and  1st  Hussars, 
K.G.L. 

At  Salamanca  Cotton  was  wounded,  and  Le  Marchant 
killed.  While  Cotton  was  disabled,  Bock  commanded  the 
Cavalry,  de  Jonquieres  having  his  brigade.  W.  Ponsonby, 
of  5th  Dragoon  Guards,  succeeded  to  Le  Marchant’s  brigade 
(by  orders  of  July  23).  Cotton  rejoined  before  October  15, 
but  had  to  go  home  again  in  December  invalided.  From 
August  1  V.  Alten  was  absent,  but  rejoined  by  the  middle 
of  September. 

By  Orders  of  October  17,  2nd  Hussars,  K.G.L.,  were 
transferred  to  V.  Alten’s  brigade. 

1st  Division.  Stopford  resumed  command  of  I  B  before 
February  1,  but  was  gone  again  by  April  8.  On  May  7 
Wheatley  was  appointed  to  command  the  brigade  until 
Stopford’s  return. 

l/26th,  being  too  sickly  for  field  service,  was  out  of  I  B 
before  March  8,  being  sent  down  to  Lisbon,  and  thence  to 
Gibraltar  to  relieve  l/82nd.  Their  place  in  I  B  was  taken 
by  l/42nd,  just  arrived  from  England  and  posted  to  I  B 
April  23.  On  May  19  2/42nd  was  ordered  home,  drafting 
its  rank  and  file  into  l/42nd.  2/58th  was  posted  to  I  B 

by  Orders  of  April  2 ;  on  June  1  its  transfer  to  V  B 
was  ordered,  but  “  orders  will  hereafter  be  given  as  to  the 
regiment  joining  the  brigade.”  It  seems  to  have  remained 
with  I  B  till  after  the  retreat  from  Burgos. 

Graham  going  home  ill  July  6,  H.  Campbell  was  appointed 
to  command  the  division,  Fermor  getting  I  A. 

Wheatley  died  September  1,  Stirling  (of  l/42nd)  being 
appointed  to  I  B  September  11. 

On  October  11E.  Paget  was  posted  to  command  the 
division,  but  he  was  taken  prisoner  November  17,  his  place 
being  taken  bj  W.  Stewart,  who  had  just  returned  to  the 
Peninsula. 

After  the  retreat  from  Burgos  the  division  was  reorganized. 


Changes  in  1812 


361 


A  new  brigade  of  Guards  was  added,  composed  of  1/lst 
(Grenadier)  Guards,  who  arrived  at  Corunna  from  England 
October  1  and  joined  the  army  on  the  Carrion  October  24,  and 
3/lst  Guards,  who  had  been  at  Cadiz,  and  came  up  to  Madrid 
with  Skerrett’s  column.  This  was  ordered  October  17, 
but  cannot  have  been  carried  out  till  later.  On  November 
10  Howard  was  transferred  from  II  A  to  command  this 
brigade.  On  November  11  Stirling’s  brigade  was  ordered 
to  be  removed  to  the  6th  Division,  the  company  of  5/60th 
attached  to  it  remaining  in  the  1st  Division.  On  December 
6  the  1st  and  2nd  Light  Battalions,  K.G.L.,  were  removed 
from  VII  A  to  the  K.G.L.  brigade  of  the  1st  Division. 

2nd  Division.  In  Orders  of  April  14,  Tilson-Chowne  (formerly 
Tilson)  was  appointed  to  command  the  division,  “  under 
Hill,”  but  though  present  at  Almaraz  in  May  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  present  to  the  end  of  the  year.  Howard  being 
transferred  to  the  1st  Division,  November  10,  Cadogan 
(of  l/71st)  took  command  of  II  A. 

3rd  Division.  At  Ciudad  Rodrigo  Mackinnon  was  killed  (January 
19),  his  brigade  going  to  Kempt — in  Orders  February  8. 

At  Badajoz  Picton  and  Kempt  were  wounded  (April  6), 
Wallace  taking  over  Kempt’s  brigade,  and  also  having 
temporary  command  of  the  division  when  Picton  was  dis¬ 
abled  :  Forbes  (of  1  /45th )  then  commanded  III  A. 

After  the  fall  of  Badajoz  77th  (a  single  battalion  regiment) 
was  sent  down  to  Lisbon,  being  much  reduced. 

On  June  28  Pakenham  was  appointed  to  command 
“  Colville’s  brigade  in  the  3rd  Division,”  i.e.  Ill  B.  At 
Salamanca  he  commanded  the  division,  Picton  having  gone 
sick  again,  Wallace  and  J.  Campbell  having  the  brigades. 

l/5th,  which  arrived  in  May,  was  posted  to  III  B  June  1, 
both  battalions  were  at  Salamanca,  but  on  July  27  2/5th 
was  drafted  into  l/5th,  the  skeleton  going  home  in  October. 

By  Orders  of  October  17  2/87th,  which  had  come  up 
from  Cadiz  with  Skerrett,  was  posted  to  III  B,  then  still 
called  “  Colville’s.” 

Wallace  was  invalided  home  after  the  retreat  from  Burgos. 

Pakenham  was  to  retain  command  of  the  division  till 
the  return  of  “  Colville  or  some  other  ”  ( W.  D.,  v.  399),  his 


362  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


name  does  not  appear  in  the  States  as  commanding  III  B 
after  November  1 :  Colville  apparently  came  back  before  the 
end  of  the  year  :  D.  N.  B.  says  in  October. 

On  April  8  Power  took  over  the  Portuguese  brigade, 
Champlemond,  who  had  it  vice  Palmeirim  by  March  17,  having 
been  wounded  at  Badajoz  :  12th  Ca9adores  were  added  to  it 
on  April  8. 

4 th  Division.  On  February  9,  Bowes  was  appointed  to  command 
“  the  brigade  late  under  Pakenham,”  i.e.  IV  B.  In  April 
Colville  was  wounded  at  Badajoz,  and  the  division  was 
without  a  G.O.C.  till  Cole  returned— before  July  8. 

At  Salamanca  (July  22),  Cole  was  wounded,  and  was 
absent  in  consequence  till  October  15.  In  Cole’s  absence 
W.  Anson,  who  was  appointed  to  IV  A  April  9,  would 
have  commanded  the  division.  The  vacancy  in  IV  A 
was  caused  by  the  departure  of  Kemmis — before  April  1 : 
at  Badajoz  Harcourt  (of  l/40th)  commanded  IV  A. 

Bowes  was  transferred  to  the  6th  Division  May  2,  and 
it  would  appear  that  Ellis  (of  l/23rd)  commanded  IV  B 
temporarily.  He  certainly  was  in  charge  of  it  at  Salamanca, 
and  apparently  kept  it  till  Skerrett  took  charge  of  it.  It 
was  then  still  described  as  “  Pakenham’s,”  as  was  also  the 
case  as  late  as  November  28.  Skerrett  was  appointed  to  it 
on  October  17,  but  his  force  from  Cadiz  only  joined  Hill 
on  October  26,  and  the  arrangements  ordered  on  October  17 
can  hardly  have  been  carried  out  at  once. 

Skerrett’s  brigade  (3/lst  Guards,  2/47th,  2/87th  and  2 
companies  2/95th)  seems  to  have  acted  with  IV  after  joining 
Hill’s  force,  but  was  broken  up  when  operations  ceased. 

Orders  of  October  17  directed  l/82nd,  which  had  come 
up  from  Gibraltar  in  June  and  was  with  the  4th  Division  at 
Madrid,  to  join  IV  B,  but  the  battalion  was  transferred  to 
VII  A  by  Orders  of  November  28,  the  20th  which  arrived 
in  December  being  posted  to  IV  B  instead.  On  l/82nd 
joining,  l/48th  was  transferred  to  IV  A. 

On  December  6  the  2nd  Provisional  Battalion  (i.e.  2nd 
and  l/53rd)  was  posted  to  IV  A. 

By  Salamanca  Stubbs  had  taken  over  command  of  the 
Portuguese  Brigade,  which  had  been  under  Harvey  by 
March  17  and  at  the  siege  of  Badajoz. 


Changes  in  1812 


363 


5th  Division.  At  Badajoz  Walker  was  wounded  (April  6) : 
his  brigade  had  no  regular  G.O.C.  till  Pringle  was  appointed 
to  it  June  28. 

On  May  10  2/4th,  arrived  at  Lisbon  during  April,  was 
posted  to  V  B.  In  June  l/38th  came  out  and  was  present 
at  Salamanca,  apparently  with  V  A,  but  it  only  appears  as 
part  of]  that  brigade  in  the  “  States  ”  of  August  8  and 
afterwards. 

Orders  of  June  1  directed  2/58th  to  join  V  B,  but  the 
battalion  seems  to  have  been  with  I  B  till  reorganized  as 
part  of  the  3rd  Provisional  Battalion  in  December. 

Hay  was  absent  from  June  8,  Greville  of  l/38th  com¬ 
manding  the  brigade  till  July  31,  when  Hulse  was  trans¬ 
ferred  to  it.  Hulse  must  have  also  commanded  the  division, 
as  Leith  was  wounded  at  Salamanca  and  invalided  home. 
Hulse  dying  (September  6),  Pringle  commanded  the  division, 
until  Oswald  was  appointed  to  it  (October  25),  when  Pringle 
reverted  to  his  brigade,  of  which  Brooke  (of  4th)  had  been 
in  command. 

Orders  of  Juno  18  directed  l/9th  to  exchange  with  2/30th 
and  2/44th,  but  these  were  cancelled  June  28.  E.  Barnes 
was  in  Orders  to  command  V  A  October  28,  but  seems  to 
have  been  with  the  brigade  at  Villa  Muriel  three  days  earlier. 
On  December  6  he  was  transferred  to  VII  A.  Hay 
appears  to  have  returned  before  December  31. 

On  December  6  Orders  directed  the  drafting  2/4th  into 
l/4th  and  2/38th  into  l/38th,  the  skeletons  being  sent  home, 
also  for  forming  2/30th  and  2/44th  into  a  Provisional  Batta¬ 
lion,  the  4th.  By  Orders  of  October  17  2/47th  of  Skerrett’s 
column  had  been  posted  to  V  B,  which  was  then  described 
as  Walker’s  brigade. 

6th  Division.  On  February  9  H.  Clinton  was  appointed  to 
command  the  division. 

By  April  1  VI  B  was  without  a  brigadier:  Bowes  was 
appointed  to  it  May  2,  but  he  was  killed  in  the  attack  on 
the  Salamanca  forts  (June  24).  On  this  Hinde,  of  32nd, 
commanded  the  brigade,  being  appointed  definitely  to  it 
September  30,  but  ante-dated  to  June. 

On  Hulse  being  transferred  to  V  A,  July  31,  VI  A  was 


364  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


without  a  brigadier,  Bingham,  of  2/53rd,  being  actually 
in  command,  until  the  amalgamation  of  the  two  brigades 
by  Orders  of  November  11.  At  the  same  time  Stirling's 
brigade  was  transferred  from  the  1st  Division  to  the  6th, 
l/91st,  which  arrived  at  Corunna  October  8,  being  added 
to  it  by  Orders  of  November  28 — it  actually  joined 
December  14. 

On  December  6  orders  were  issued  for  the  formation  of 
2nd  and  2/53rd  as  the  2nd  Provisional  Battalion,  and  of  2/24th, 
and  2/58th  as  the  3rd  Provisional  Battalion,  and  for  their 
transfer  to  IV  A  and  VII  A  respectively. 

The  Portuguese  Brigade  was  under  Eben  till  April  30,  when 
the  Conde  de  Rezende  took  command.  It  was  joined  by  9th 
Cacadores  on  April  10.  Rezende  was  invalided  in  November, 
and  succeeded  by  Madden. 

1th  Division.  On  May  2  Alten  was  transferred  to  command  the 
Light  Division :  John  Hope  being  given  command  of  the 
7th.  Halkett  of  2nd  Light  Battalion,  K.G.L.  seems  to 
have  commanded  VII  A,  though  in  the  “  States  ”  no  brigadier 
is  named  from  May  2  till  December  6,  when  E.  Barnes  was 
appointed  to  it. 

Hope  having  to  quit  the  army  on  account  of  his  health 
September  23,  the  division  had  no  G.O.C.  till  October  25, 
when  Lord  Dalhousie  was  appointed  to  it,  having  been 
put  on  the  Staff  of  the  Army  September  12. 

On  November  28,  l/6th,  newly  arrived  from  England,  was 
added  to  VII  A,  then  called  “  Colonel  Halkett’s,”  and  l/82nd, 
from  IV  B,  was  added  to  VII  B. 

Orders  of  December  6  directed  the  transfer  of  the  Light 
Battalions,  K.G.L.,  to  the  1st  Division,  the  3rd  Provisional 
Battalion  (i.e.  2/24th  and  2/58th)  being  added  to  VII  A. 

The  Portuguese  Brigade  was  under  Palmeirim  in  March  : 
later  it  seems  to  have  been  under  Doyle  of  the  19th  Line. 

Light  Division.  At  Ciudad  Rodrigo  (January  19),  Craufurd  was 
killed,  and  Vandeleur  wounded ;  Barnard  then  took  com¬ 
mand  of  the  division,  and  Gibbs  of  l/52nd  of  the  2nd  Brigade. 
By  April  15  Vandeleur  had  resumed  command,  2/52nd  was 
drafted  to  l/52nd  by  Orders  of  February  23,  the  skeleton 
being  sent  home. 

On  May  2  C.  Alten  received  command  of  the  division. 


Changes  in  1813 


365 


By  May  8  l/95th  had  been  united  in  the  2nd  Brigade, 
but  Orders  of  August  24  again  divided  it,  3  companies  in 
each  brigade :  before  the  end  of  the  year  it  was  again 
united  and  placed  in  the  1st  Brigade. 

Two  more  companies  2/95th  came  out  from  England  in 
May,  and  joined  those  already  out,  the  four  being  in  the 
2nd  Brigade.  Two  more  came  up  from  Cadiz  with  Skerrett, 
and  joined  the  brigade. 

3/95th  seems  to  have  been  transferred  temporarily  to  the 
2nd  Brigade,  but  was  back  in  the  1st  by  the  end  of  the  year. 

The  20th  Portuguese,  which  had  come  up  with  Skerrett, 
were  posted  to  “  Beckwith’s  brigade,”  October  17. 

Portuguese.  In  April,  1812,  Power  had  replaced  Arch.  Campbell 
in  command  of  the  4th  Brigade,  while  Bradford  had  the 
1 1th  vice  McMahon :  this  now  included  the  5th  Caoadores, 
13th  and  24th  Line. 

By  July  Power  had  exchanged  the  4th  Brigade  for  the 
8th, _  which  was  in  the  3rd  Division.  A.  Campbell  would 
seem  to  have  again  commanded  the  4th,  to  which  on  April  8 
the  10th  Ca§adores  were  added. 

1813. 

On  January  1  the  Army  was  organized  as  follows : — 

Cavalry.  1st  Division.  No  G.O.C.,  Cotton  absent.  F  [W. 
Ponsonby],  5th  Dragoon  Guards,  3rd  and  4th  Dragoons  ; 
C  [G.  Anson],  11th,  12th,  and  16th  Light  Dragoons;  E 
[V.  Alten],  14th  Light  Dragoons,  1st  and  2nd  K.G.L. 
Hussars  ;  G  [Bock],  1st  and  2nd  K.G.L.  Dragoons. 

Cavalry.  2nd  Division.  No  G.O.C.  B  [Slade],  3rd  and  4th 
Dragoon  Guards,  1st  Dragoons ;  D  [Long],  9th  and  13th 
Light  Dragoons. 

ls<  Division.  G.O.C. ,  W.  Stewart.  A  [Howard],  1  /1st  Guards, 
3/lst  Guards,  1  company  5/60th ;  B  [Fermor],  1st  Cold- 
streams,  1st  Scots,  1  company  5/60th  ;  C.  [Low],  1st,  2nd, 
and  5th  Line,  K.G.L.,  1st  and  2nd  Light  Battalions,  K.G.L.* 

*  Some  accounts  represent  the  Light  Battalions  as  forming  a 
separate  brigade  under  Halkett. 


366  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


2nd  Division.  G.O.C.,  Hill.  A  [Cadogan],  l/50tk,  1/7 1st,  l/92nd, 

1  company  5/60th ;  B  [Byng],  l/3rd,  l/57th,  1st  Provisional 
Battalion  ( =  2/31st  and  2/66tk),  1  company  5/60th ;  C 
[Wilson],  l/28th,  2/34th,  l/39th,  1  company  5/60th;  also 
Ashworth’s  Portuguese. 

3rd  Division.  G.O.C.,  ?  Pakenham.  A  [no  brigadier],  l/45th, 
headquarters  5/60tli,  74th,  l/88th ;  B  [J.  Campbell  for 
Colville],  l/5th,  2/83rd,  2/87 th,  94th ;  also  Power’s 

Portuguese. 

4 th  Division.  G.O.C.,  Cole.  A  [W.  Anson],  3/27th,  l/40th,  l/48th, 
2nd  Provisional  Battalion  (=  2nd  and  2/53rd),  1  company 
5/60th ;  B  [Skerrett],  l/7th,  20th,  l/23rd,  1  company 
Brunswick  Oels;  also  Stubbs’  Portuguese. 

5 th  Division.  G.O.C.,  ?  Hay,  acting.  A  [Hay],  3/lst,  l/9th, 
l/38th,  1  company  Brunswick  Oels;  B  [Pringle],  l/4th, 
2/47th,  4th  Provisional  Battalion  (=  2/30th  and  2/44th), 
1  company  Brunswick  Oels;  also  Spry’s  Portuguese. 

G th  Division.  G.O.C.,  H.  Clinton.  A  [Stirling],  l/42nd,  l/79th, 
l/91st,  1  company  5/60th ;  B  [Hinde],  1/llth,  l/32nd, 
l/36th,  l/61st;  also  Madden’s  Portuguese. 

7 th  Division.  G.O.C.,  Dalhousie.  A  [Barnes],  l/6th,  3rd 
Provisional  Battalion  (=  2/24th  and  2/58th),  Headquarters 
and  9  companies  Brunswick  Oels ;  B  [de  Bemewitz],  51st, 
68th,  l/82nd ;  Chasseurs  Britanniques ;  also  Doyle’s 
Portuguese. 

Light  Division.  G.O.C.,  C.  Alten.  A  [no  brigadier  present : 
still  called  Beckwith’s],  l/43rd,  l/95th,  3/95th,  1st  Ca§adores  ; 
B  [Vandeleur],  l/52nd,  2/95th,  3rd  Ca9adores,  ?  20th 
Portuguese. 

Portuguese.  Hamilton’s  division,  brigades  under  (?)  Fonseca 
and  Campbell.  Unattached  brigades,  Pack’s  and  Bradford’s. 

Subsequent  changes  were  : — 

Cavalry.  By  January  25  a  new  brigade  (H)  was  added, 
composed  of  two  squadrons  each  of  1st  and  2nd  Life  Guards 
and  Royal  Horse  Guards,  O’Loghlin  had  apparently  been 
appointed  to  command  it,  but  by  Orders  of  November  28, 


Changes  in  1813 


367 


1812,  F.  S.  Rebow  was  appointed  to  command  it  in  his 
place.  It  ranked  as  3rd  Brigade,  2nd  Division,  but  was 
transferred  to  the  1st  on  February  5.  In  March  it  was 
under  Sir  Robert  Hill,  Rebow  having  gone  home. 

Orders  of  March  13  directed  the  distribution  among  the 
regiments  remaining  in  the  Peninsula  of  the  horses  of  4tli 
Dragoon  Guards,  9th  and  11th  Light  Dragoons,  and  2nd 
K.G.L.  Hussars,  these  regiments  going  home.  Their  place 
was  taken  by  a  new  brigade  (I),  under  Colquhoun 
Grant,  of  15th  Hussars,  composed  of  the  10th,  15th 
and  18th  Hussars this  first  appears  in  the  “States”  on 
April  15. 

Orders  were  issued  April  21  for  the  amalgamation  of  the 
two  divisions,  “  under  the  command  of  Sir  S.  Cotton  ”  : 
Cotton  did  not,  however,  rejoin  till  June  25,  and  in  his 
absence  Bock  seems  to  have  commanded  the  cavalry,  his 
brigade  being  under  Billow. 

On  May  20  Fane,  appointed  a  Major-General  on  the  Staff 
April  24,  was  given  B  vice  Slade,  who  had  been  ordered 
home  April  23. 

On  July  2  orders  were  issued  to  transfer  the  18th  Hussars 
to  V.  Alten’s  brigade,  vice  the  14th  Light  Dragoons  moved 
to  Long’s,  which  had  been  reduced  to  one  regiment  by  the 
departure  of  the  9th  Light  Dragoons  (out  of  the  “  States  ”  by 
April  4).  Lord  E.  Somerset  at  the  same  time  was  given 
command  of  the  Hussar  brigade  vice  Grant  and  Vande- 
leur,  that  of  C  vice  G.  Anson,  removed  to  the  Home 
Staff. 

On  September  6  Grant  was  appointed  to  take  over 
Long’s  brigade,  Long  having  apparently  gone  home  before 
the  battles  of  the  Pyrenees,  as  his  name  was  not  among  the 
commanders  of  Cavalry  brigades  thanked  by  Parliament 
on  November  8  for  those  operations.  On  November  24 
Hussey  Vivian  was  appointed  to  take  Grant’s  place. 

7th  Hussars  arrived  in  Spain  in  September,  and  were 
added  to  the  Hussar  brigade.  They  would  seem  to  have 
been  with  the  brigade  by  October  21,  but  were  not  in  Orders 
till  November  24. 

In  October  O’Loghlin  seems  to  have  taken  over  the 
Household  Brigade,  he  had  been  placed  on  the  Staff  June  17. 


368  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


ls<  Division.  In  March  Howard  replaced  W.  Stewart  in  com¬ 
mand,  but  on  May  19  Graham  was  appointed  to  command 
the  division  Howard  acting  as  his  assistant  while  Graham 
commanded  the  left  wing  of  the  army.  On  October  8 
Graham  resigned  command  and  went  home  ill.  Sir  John 
Hope  *  took  his  place :  he  was  placed  on  the  Staff  October 
10,  as  from  September  25. 

While  Howard  commanded  the  division  his  brigade  was 
under  Lambert ;  it  missed  Vittoria,  being  too  sickly  to  take 
the  field  with  the  army  and  only  joined  in  August. 

On  July  2  Lambert  was  transferred  to  VI  B,  and  Mait¬ 
land  got  the  brigade. 

Low  went  home  May  6,  the  K.G.L.  being  certainly 
one  brigade  only  at  Vittoria,  where  Halkett  commanded 
them. 

Lord  Aylmer’s  brigade  (76th,  2/84th  and  85th)  which  is 
first  mentioned  in  Orders  on  July  23,  and  joined  the 
army  during  August,  may  be  reckoned  as  part  of  the  1st 
Division  with  which  it  always  acted.  By  Orders  of  October 
17  2/62nd  was  added  to  it  vice  2/84th  transferred  to  V  B. 
On  November  24  the  77th  (from  Lisbon)  was  added  to  it. 

On  October  20  Hiniiber  was  appointed  to  command  the 
K.G.L.  infantry. 

2nd  Division.  On  March  25  W.  Stewart  was  appointed  to 
command  the  division  “  under  Hill’s  direction.”  At  the 
same  time  G.  T.  Walker  got  Howard’s  brigade,  on  the  latter 
taking  over  the  1st  Division  from  Stewart. 

Wilson  died  in  January  and  O’Callaghan  of  39th  com¬ 
manded  the  brigade  till  July  23,  when  Pringle  was  appointed 
to  it.  On  May  1  Wellington  had  written  that  he  was  keeping 
it  vacant  for  Oswald,  should  Leith  come  out  and  take  over 
the  5th  Division. 

At  Vittoria  Cadogan  was  killed  and  J.  Cameron  of  92nd 
took  over  IIA;  he  was  wounded  at  Maya  (July  25),  and 
Fitzgerald  of  5/60th  commanded,  till  Walker  actually  joined 
in  August.  On  November  18  Walker  was  transferred  to 
command  the  7th  Division,  Barnes  being  appointed  to  II  A 
November  20. 

*  Not  the  same  man  who  commanded  the  7th  Division  in  1812, 
but  the  1st  Earl  of  Hopetoun. 


Changes  in  1813 


369 


3rd  Division,  Pakenham  was  transferred  to  the  (5th  Division 
January  26,  the  division  being  under  Colville  who  had 
returned  before  that  date.  Picton  rejoined  in  May,  Colville 
reverting  to  the  command  of  his  brigade.  Picton  was  again 
absent  from  September  8,  but  returned  just  before  the  end 
of  the  year.  Colville  was  in  command  at  the  Nivelle 
(November),  but  was  transferred  to  command  the  5th 
Division,  when  Picton  came  back  in  December. 

The  11th  Ca§adores  were  posted  to  Power’s  brigade  before 
April  26,  taking  the  place  of  the  12th. 

Brisbane,  appointed  to  Staff  of  Army  January  7,  was 
given  command  of  III  A,  vice  Kempt,  March  25. 

Colville  being  given  temporary  command  of  the  6th 
Division  on  August  8,  Keane  commanded  III  B,  as  also 
when  Colville  came  back  to  the  division. 

ilh  Division.  By  Orders  of  July  2  Skerrett  was  transferred 
to  the  Light  Division,  his  brigade  going  to  Ross  of  20th. 

By  September  1  the  Portuguese  brigade  was  under 
Miller :  at  the  Nivelle  (November  10)  Vasconccllos  had  it. 

5th  Division.  While  Hay  commanded  the  division  Greville  of 
38th  had  his  brigade.  In  April  Oswald  took  over  the 
division  and  commanded  it  till  Leith  returned — August  30. 
Leith  was  wounded  at  San  Sebastian  on  September  1,  and 
Oswald  again  took  command ;  but  at  the  Bidassoa,  (October  9) 
Hay  was  in  command,  Greville  having  V  A.  On  March  9 
Robinson  was  appointed  to  “  Walker’s  brigade,”  i.e.  V  B. 

On  April  12  2/59tk  from  Cadiz  was  added  to  V  B ;  on 
May  10  the  4th  Provisional  Battalion  was  ordered  to  return 
home.  On  October  17  2/84th  from  Lord  Aylmer’s  brigade 
was  added  to  V  B,  2/47th  being  transferred  to  V  A. 
Robinson  was  wounded  before  Bayonne  December  10,  and  his 
successor,  Piper  of  4th,  being  wounded  next  day  the  command 
passed  to  Tonson  of  2/84th. 

At  the  passage  of  the  Bidassoa  the  Portuguese  brigade 
was  commanded  by  de  Regoa  and  until  the  end  of  the  year. 

6 th  Division.  On  January  26  Pakenham  was  appointed  to 
command  the  division  in  Clinton’s  absence.  On  June  25 
he  was  appointed  Adjutant-General,  and  Clinton  returned 
and  resumed  command.  By  July  22  Clinton  was  again 

2  B 


370  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


absent,  Pack  getting  the  division.  At  Sorauren  (July  28) 
Pack  was  wounded,  and  Pakenham  took  over  the  division 
temporarily,  giving  it  over  to  Colville  before  August  8, 
Colville  seems  to  have  still  been  in  command  at  the  passage 
of  the  Bidassoa  (October  9),  but  Clinton  then  returned, 
Colville  reverting  to  the  3rd  Division. 

Pack  had  been  appointed  to  command  VI  A,  vice 
Stirling,  July  2,  Lambert  at  the  same  time  getting  VI  B,  vice 
Hinde.  Stirling  commanded  VI  A  when  Pack  got  the 
division,  but  went  home  in  October. 

The  Portuguese  brigade  was  under  the  command  of 
Madden  till  the  autumn :  Douglas  of  the  8th  Line  had  it  at 
the  Nivelle. 

7 th  Division.  By  April  16  de  Berne  witz  was  no  longer  in 
command  of  his  brigade,  to  which  Inglis  was  appointed 
May  21,  though  at  Vittoria  Grant  of  l/82nd  commanded 
it,  but  Inglis  took  charge  before  the  Pyrenees. 

Le  Cor  received  command  of  the  Portuguese  brigade  on 
March  9.  When  he  was  promoted  in  November  Doyle  had  it. 

Dalhousie  went  home  after  the  Bidassoa,  October  9, 
and  at  the  Nivelle  (November  9)  Le  Cor  was  in  command. 
On  November  18  G.  T.  Walker  was  given  command  “  in 
Dalhousie’s  absence.”  Le  Cor  would  seem  to  have  been 
transferred  to  command  the  Portuguese  division  formerly 
under  Hamilton. 

On  Barnes  returning  to  the  2nd  Division  November  20, 
his  brigade  seems  to  have  gone  to  Gardiner. 

Light  Division.  On  March  23  Kempt  was  appointed  to  A. 
On  July  2  Vandeleur  was  transferred  to  a  cavalry  brigade, 
Skerrett  getting  B.  At  the  passage  of  the  Bidassoa  and 
to  the  end  of  the  year  Colborne  of  52nd  was  in  command 
of  B,  vice  Skerrett,  who  went  home  in  September. 

The  20th  Portuguese  never  joined  the  division:  in 
place  of  them  on  April  26  the  17th  Portuguese  appear 
in  its  “  State.” 

Portuguese.  Hamilton  had  had  to  give  up  command  of  his 
Portuguese  division  in  February,  owing  to  ill-health,  upon 
which  it  was  under  Silveira,  the  brigades  being  under 
Da  Costa  and  Campbell  during  the  battles  of  the  Pyrenees. 


371 


Organization  on  Jan.  1,  1814 

By  the  passage  of  the  Nivelle  (November  9)  Hamilton  was 
again  in  command,  Buchan  had  Da  Costa’s  brigade,  but 
during  the  fighting  on  the  Nive  (December  9 — 11),  Le  Cor 
had  the  division  and  Buchan  and  Da  Costa  the  brigades. 
Buchan  was  ordered  to  transfer  himself  to  the  Portuguese 
Brigade  of  the  7th  Division  on  Nov.  9,  but  this  move  was 
countermanded. 

When  Pack  was  moved  to  a  British  command  (July  2)  his 
brigade  went  to  Wilson,  who  commanded  it  at  the  Bidassoa, 
but  had  been  replaced  by  A.  Campbell  by  the  Nive  (December 
9),  Wilson  having  been  wounded  November  18. 

Bradford  seems  to  have  retained  the  other  unattached 
brigade  all  the  year. 


1814. 

On  January  1  the  organization  was  as  follows  : — 

Cavalry.  G.O.C.,  Cotton.  I  [O’Loghlin],  1st  and  2nd  Life 
Guards,  R.H.G. ;  F  [W.  Ponsonby],  5th  Dragoon  Guards, 
3rd  and  4th  Dragoons  ;  C  [Vandeleur],  12th  and  16th  Light 
Dragoons ;  D  [Vivian],  13th  and  14th  Light  Dragoons ; 
E  [V.  Alten],  18th  Hussars,  1st  K.G.L.  Hussars ;  G  [Bock], 
1st  and  2nd  K.G.L.  Dragoons ;  B  [Fane],  3rd  Dragoon  Guards, 
1st  Dragoons  ;  H  [Somerset],  7th,  10th  and  15th  Hussars. 

lsi  Division.  G.O.C.,  Hope,  with  Howard  as  assistant ;  A 
[Maitland  for  Howard],  1/lst  Guards,  3/lst  Guards,  1  company 
5/60th  ;  B  [Stopford],  1st  Coldstreams,  1st  Scots,  1  company 
5/60th ;  C  [Hiniiber],  1st,  2nd  and  5th  Line,  K.G.L.  ;  1st 
and  2nd  Light  Battalions,  K.G.L. ;  D  [Aylmer],  2/62nd, 
76th,  77th,  85th. 

2nd  Division.  G.O.C.,  W.  Stewart.  A  [Barnes],  l/50th,  l/71st, 
l/92nd,  1  company  5/60th ;  B  [Byng],  l/3rd,  1/57 th,  1st 
Provisional  Battalion  (2/31st  and  2/66th),  1  company  5/60th  ; 
C  [Pringle],  1 /28th,  2/34th,  1 /39th,  1  company  5/60th ;  also 
Ashworth’s  Portuguese. 

3rd  Division.  G.O.C.,  Picton.  A  [Brisbane],  l/45th,  Head¬ 
quarters  5/60th,  74th,  l/88th;  B  [Keane],  l/5th,  2/83rd, 
2/87th,  94th;  also  Power’s  Portuguese. 

4 th  Division.  G.O.C.,  Cole.  A  [W.  Anson],  3/27 th,  l/40th, 
l/48th,  2nd  Provisional  Battalion  (2nd  and  2/53rd),  1 


372  Divisional  and  Brigade  Organization 


company  Brunswick  Oels ;  B  [Ross],  l/7tk,  l/20th,  l/23rd, 

1  company  5/60th;  also  Vasconcellos’  Portuguese. 

5tli  Division.  G.O.C.,  Colville.  A  [Hay],  3/lst,  l/9tli,  l/38tk, 
2/47tk,  1  company  Brunswick  Oels ;  B  [Robinson],  l/4th, 
2/59th,  2/84th,  1  company  Brunswick  Oels ;  also  de  Regoa’s 
Portuguese. 

Glh  Division.  G.O.C.,  Clinton.  A  [Pack],  l/42nd,  l/79th, 

l/91st,  1  company  5/60th ;  B  [Lambert],  1/1 1th,  l/32nd, 
l/36th,  l/61st ;  also  Douglas’  Portuguese. 

7th  Division.  G.O.C.,  Walker.  A  [Gardiner],  l/6th,  3rd  Pro¬ 
visional  Battalion  (2/24th  and  2/58th),  Headquarters 
Brimswick  Oels ;  B  [Inglis],  51st,  68th,  l/82nd,  Chasseurs 
Britanniques ;  also  Doyle’s  Portuguese. 

Light  Division.  G.O.C.,  C.  Alton.  A  [Kempt],  l/43rd,  l/95th, 
3/95th,  1st  Cagadores ;  B  [Colborne],  l/52nd,  2/95th,  3rd 
Cagadores,  17th  Portuguese. 

Portuguese.  Le  Cor’s  division,  with  Da  Costa  and  Buchan 
commanding  brigades.  Unattached  brigades  under  A. 
Campbell  and  Bradford. 

Subsequent  changes  were  : — 

Cavalry.  By  January  16  several  changes  had  taken  place : 
V.  Alten  had  gone  and  Vivian  had  been  transferred  to  his 
brigade,  Fane  having  transferred  from  B  to  D  (late  Vivian’s). 
Bock  also  went  (he  was  drowned  o2  the  coast  of  Brittany  in 
February)  about  the  same  time. 

From  January  25  W.  Ponsonby  was  absent,  Lord  C. 
Maimers  of  3rd  Dragoons  commanding  his  brigade. 

By  March  25  Arentschildt  (of  1st  K.G.L.  Hussars)  had 
been  given  Bock’s  old  brigade :  on  Vivian  being  wounded 
(April  8)  Arentschildt  was  transferred  to  E,  and  Biilow  got 
the  “  German  Heavy  Brigade.” 

Fane’s  name  appears  in  the  “  States  ”  both  as  commanding 
B  and  D.  According  to  the  Regimental  History  of  the 
14 th  Hussars  (by  Col.  H.  B.  Hamilton)  he  commanded  both, 
working  them  practically  as  a  division,  the  brigades  being 


Changes  in  1814  373 

respectively  commanded  by  Clifton  of  the  Royals  (B),  and 
Doherty  of  the  13th  Light  Dragoons  (D). 

1st  Division.  l/37th  joined  Aylmer’s  brigade  before  March  25. 
On  April  14  Stopford  was  wounded  at  Bayonne  and  his 
division  went  to  Guise. 

2nd  Division.  On  February  15  Pringle  was  wounded  and 
O’Callaghan  commanded  the  brigade. 

It  was  arranged  that  when  Lord  Dalhousie  rejoined,  and 
resumed  command  of  the  7th  Division,  Walker  should  revert 
to  II  A  and  Barnes  take  over  III  B,  but  Walker  was  wounded 
at  Orthez  and  went  home,  so  the  arrangement  was  never 
carried  out. 

By  January  16  Harding  had  replaced  Ashworth  in  com¬ 
mand  of  the  5th  Portuguese  brigade. 

3 rd  Division.  No  changes :  Brisbane  was  slightly  wounded  at 
Toulouse. 

4th  Division.  Ross  was  wounded  at  Orthez  (February  27)  and 
the  brigade  was  without  a  G.O.C. 

5 th  Division.  After  February  1  Robinson  was  absent. 

Hay  was  killed  before  Bayonne  April  14. 

6 th  Division.  Pack  was  wounded  at  Toulouse,  as  was  also 
Douglas. 

l/32nd  missed  Toulouse,  being  at  San  Jean  de  Luz  refitting. 

7 th  Division.  Walker  was  wounded  at  Orthez  and  went  home: 
Dalhousie  arriving  almost  immediately  after  the  battle 
and  resuming  command. 

By  January  16,  the  Portuguese  brigade  was  under  Doyle 
(he  may  have  got  it  when  Le  Cor  obtained  command  of  the 
Portuguese  division.) 

Light  Division.  l/43rd  and  l/95th  both  missed  Orthez,  being 
away  refitting. 

Portuguese.  Da  Costa  was  ordered  back  to  Portugal  before 
March  15. 


APPENDIX  III. 


PENINSULAR  AUTOBIOGRAPHIES,  JOURNALS, 
LETTERS,  ETC. 

The  subjoined  list,  which  includes  all  the  printed  autobiographies, 
diaries,  journals,  and  series  of  letters  utilized  in  this  volume,  makes 
no  pretensions  to  be  exhaustive.  It  contains,  however,  all  the 
more  important  original  sources  of  this  character,  as  opposed  to 
formal  histories,  controversial  monographs,  and  biographies  of 
Peninsular  officers  written  by  authors  who  were  not  themselves 
engaged  in  the  war.  But  I  have  added  to  the  list  those  later 
biographies  which  contain  a  great  proportion  of  original  and  con¬ 
temporary  letters  or  diaries,  such  as  Delavoye’s  Life  of  Lord  Lynedoch, 
Rait’s  Life  of  Lord  Gough,  Wrottesley’s  Life  of  Sir  John  Burgoyne, 
and  C.  Vivian’s  Life  of  Lord  Vivian.  Much  valuable  first-hand 
information  is  imbedded  in  such  works. 

The  books  are  arranged  under  headings  according  to  the  position 
which  the  writer  held  in  the  Peninsular  War,  mainly  by  regiments, 
but  partly  under  departmental  sections  [staff,  commissariat,  medical, 
etc.].  I  trust  that  the  list  may  be  found  useful  for  those  wishing  to 
compile  regimental,  brigade,  or  divisional  annals  of  any  part  of 
the  war. 


I.  STAFF. 

[Including  the  Diaries,  Memoirs,  Correspondence,  etc.,  of  General 
Officers,  their  Aides-de-Camp,  and  Officers  attached  to  Head - 
Quarters .] 

Blayney  (Lord).  Narrative  of  a  Forced  Journey  through  Spain  and 
France,  by  Major-General  Lord  Blayney  [The  Fuengirola 
Expedition,  etc.].  London,  1814. 

Burghersh  (Lord).  Memoir  of  the  Early  Campaign  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  in  Portugal  and  Spain  [anon].  London,  1820. 


376  Regimental  Bibliography 

Cotton,  Sir  S.  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Field-Marshal  Lord 
Combermere  [Sir  Stapleton  Cotton],  ed.  by  Viscountess  Comber- 
mere  and  Capt.  W.  Rnollys.  London,  1866. 

Douglas,  Sir  H.  Life  of  General  Sir  Howard  Douglas  from  his  Notes, 
Conversation,  and  Letters  [Campaigns  of  1811-14].  London, 
1863. 

Fitzolarence,  A.  An  Account  of  the  British  Campaign  of  1809  under 
Sir  A.  Wellesley  in  Portugal  and  Spain  by  Lt.-Col.  Fitzolarence 
[Earl  of  Munster].  London,  1831. 

Graham,  Sir  T.  Life  and  Letters  of  Sir  Thomas  Graham,  Lord 
Lynedoch,  by  Captain  A.  M.  Delavoye.  London,  1868. 

Gomm  (Sir  W.).  His  Letters  and  Journals  from  1799  to  Waterloo 
[1808-9  and  1810-14].  London,  1881. 

Hill,  Lord,  Life  and  Letters  of,  by  Rev.  E.  Sidney.  London,  1846. 

Larpent,  F.  S.  The  Private  Journal  of  Judge- Advocate  F.  S.  Larpent, 
attached  to  Lord  Wellington’s  Headquarters,  1812-14.  London, 
1853. 

Leith  Hay,  A.  Narrative  of  the  Peninsular  War,  by  Sir  Andrew  Leith 
Hay  [Aide-de-Camp  to  General  Leith].  2  vols.  London,  1879. 

Mackinnon,  General  Henry.  Journal  in  Portugal  and  Spain,  1809-12 
[Privately  Printed].  1812. 

Moore,  Sir  J.  The  Diary  of  Sir  John  Moore,  ed.  by  General  SirT.  F. 
Maurice.  2  vols.  London,  1904. 

Picton,  Sir  T.  Memoirs  and  Correspondence  of  General  Sir  T.  Picton, 
by  H.  B.  Robinson.  2  vols.  London,  1836. 

Porter,  Sir  R.  K.  Letters  from  Portugal  and  Spain  written  during 
the  March  of  the  British  Troops  [by  Sir  Robert  Ker  Porter], 
1808-9.  London,  1809. 

Shaw-Kennedy,  T.  [Aide-de-Camp  to  General  Craufui’d].  Diary  of 
1810,  printed  in  Lord  Fitzclarence’s  Manual  of  Outpost  Duties. 
London,  1849. 

Sorell,  T.  S.  Notes  on  the  Campaign  of  1808-9,  by  Lieut.-Col.  T.  S. 
Sorell,  Aide-de-Camp  to  Sir  D.  Baird.  London,  1828. 

Stewart,  Sir  Chas.  Lives  and  Correspondence  of  the  Second  and  Third 
Marquesses  of  Londonderry  [the  third  was  Chas.  Stewart, 
Adjutant-General  to  Wellington].  3  vols.  London,  1861. 

Vere,  C.  B.  Marches,  Movements,  and  Operations  of  the  4th 
Division,  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  1810-12,  by  Chas.  Brooke 
Vere,  Assistant  Quarter-Master  General  of  the  Division.  Ipswich, 
1841. 


Regimental  Bibliography 


377 


II.  REGIMENTAL  REMINISCENCES  AND  JOURNALS. 

(a)  Cavalry. 

7th  Hussars.  Vivian  (Lord).  Richard  Hussey  Vivian,  First  Baron 
Vivian,  Memoir  and  Letters,  by  Hon.  Claud  Vivian  [1808-9 
and  1813-14],  London,  1897. 

11th  Light  Dragoons.  Farmer,  G.  “  The  Light  Dragoon,”  the 
story  of  Geo.  Farmer,  11th  Light  Dragoons,  ed.  Rev.  G.  R. 
Gleig  [1811  and  Waterloo].  London,  1844. 

14th  Light  Dragoons.  Hawker,  Peter.  Journal  of  the  Campaign  of 
1809,  by  Lieut.-Col.  Hawker,  14th  Light  Dragoons.  London, 1810. 

- .  Reminiscences  of  1811-12  by  Comet  Francis  Hall.  In 

Journal  United  Service  Institution  for  1912. 

16th  Light  Dragoons.  Hay,  W.  Reminiscences  under  Wellington, 
1808-15,  by  Captain  William  Hay,  52nd  Foot  and  16th  Light 
Dragoons.  London,  1901. 

- .  Tomkinson,  W.  The  Diary  of  a  Cavalry  Officer  in  the 

Peninsular  and  Waterloo  Campaigns,  1809-15.  London,  1894. 

18th  Hussars.  Woodberry,  G.  Journal  of  Lieutenant  Woodberry 
in  the  Campaigns  of  1813-15.  Paris,  1896. 

20th  Light  Dragoons.  Landsheit  (N.).  The  Hussar:  the  story  of 
Norbert  Landsheit,  Sergeant  in  the  York  Hussars  and  the  20th 
Light  Dragoons,  ed.  Rev.  G.  R.  Gleig.  London,  1837. 

Anonymous.  Jottings  from  my  Sabretache,  by  a  Chelsea  Pensioner 
[Campaigns  of  1813-14].  London,  1847. 

— .  Personal  Narrative  of  Adventures  in  the  Peninsular  War, 
1812-13,  by  an  Officer  in  the  Staff  Corps  Cavalry.  London,  1827, 

(b)  Infantry. 

1st  Foot  Guards.  Batty,  R.  The  Campaign  in  the  Pyrenees  and 
Southern  France,  1813-14,  by  Captain  Robert  Batty,  1st  Foot 
Guards.  Illustrated.  London,  1823. 

2nd  Foot  Guards.  Stepney,  S.  C.  Leaves  from  the  Diary  of  an 
Officer  of  the  Guard,  Sketches  of  Campaigning  Life,  by  Lieut.- 
Col.  S.  Cowell  Stepney,  K.H.,  Coldstream  Guards  [Campaigns  of 
1810-12].  London,  1854. 

3rd  Foot  Guards.  Stevenson,  J.  Twenty-One  Years  in  the  British 
Foot  Guards,  by  John  Stevenson,  3rd  Foot  Guards,  sixteen 
years  a  non-commissioned  officer,  forty  years  a  Wesleyan  class- 
leader  [Campaigns  of  1809-11].  London,  1830. 


378 


Regimental  Bibliography 


3rd  Foot  Guards.  Stothert,  W.  Journal  of  the  Campaigns  of 
1809-11,  by  Captain  William  Stothert,  3rd  Foot  Guards. 
London,  1812. 

3rd  Foot  (the  Buffs).  Reminiscences  of  a  Veteran,  being  Personal 
and  Military  Adventures  in  the  Peninsula,  etc.,  by  Lieut.-Gen. 
T.  Bunbury  [only  1808-9  in  the  Buffs].  London,  1861. 

5th  Foot.  Morley,  S.  Memoirs  of  a  Sergeant  of  the  5th  Regiment, 
by  Sergeant  Stephen  Morley,  5th  Foot  [Campaigns  of  1808-11]. 
Ashford,  1842. 

7th  Foot.  Cooper,  J.  S.  Rough  Notes  of  Seven  Campaigns  in 
Portugal,  etc.,  by  John  Spenser  Cooper,  Sergeant  7th  Royal 
Fusiliers.  Carlisle,  1869. 

- .  Knowles,  R.  Letters  of  Lieut.  Robert  Knowles,  7th 

Fusiliers,  during  the  Campaigns  of  1811-13,  ed.  by  Sir  Lees 
Knowles,  Bart.  Bolton,  1909. 

9th  Foot.  Hale,  J.  Journal  of  James  Hale,  late  Sergeant  9th 
Foot  [1808-14].  Cirencester,  1826. 

20th  Foot.  Steevens,  C.  Reminiscences  of  Col.  Chas.  Steevens, 
1795-1818  [Campaigns  of  1808  and  1813-14],  Winchester, 
1878. 

24th  Foot.  Tidy,  C.  Recollections  of  an  Old  Soldier,  a  Biographical 
Sketch  of  the  Late  Col.  Tidy,  C.B.,  24th  Regt.  [1808].  London, 
1849. 

28th  Foot.  Cadell,  C.  Narrative  of  the  Campaigns  of  the  28th 
Regt.  from  1802  to  1832,  by  Col.  Chas.  Cadell  [1809-1814]. 
London,  1835. 

- .  Blakeney,  R.  Services,  Adventures,  and  Experiences 

of  Capt.  Robert  Blakeney,  “  A  Boy  in  the  Peninsular  War,” 
edited  by  Julian  Sturgis  [1808-14].  London,  1899. 

29th  Foot.  Leslie.  Journal  during  the  Peninsular  War,  etc.,  of 
Colonel  Leslie  of  Balquam  [1809-14].  Aberdeen,  1887. 

— — .  Leith-Hay,  A.  A  Narrative  of  the  Peninsular  War,  by  Sir 
Andrew  Leith  Hay  (personal  adventures,  first  with  the  29th, 
then  as  Aide-de-Camp  to  General  Leith).  London,  1839. 

31st  Foot.  L’Estrange,  G.  Recollections  of  Sir  George  L’Estrange, 
1812-14.  London,  1873. 

32nd  Foot.  Ross-Lewin,  H.  Life  of  a  Soldier,  a  Narrative  of  27 
years’  service  in  various  parts  of  the  World,  by  a  Field 
Officer  [Major  H.  Ross-Lewin]  [1808-14].  2  vols.  London, 

1834. 


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379 


34th  Foot.  Bell,  G.  Rough  Notes  by  an  Old  Soldier,  during  Fifty 
Years’  Service,  from  Ensign  to  Major-General.  2  vols.  [Cam¬ 
paigns  of  1811-14].  London,  1867. 

40th  Foot.  Lawrence,  W.  The  Autobiography  of  Sergeant  Wm. 
Lawrence,  40th  Regt.,  ed.  by  G.  N.  Banks  [Campaigns  of 
1808-14].  London,  1901. 

42nd  Foot.  Anton,  J.  Retrospect  of  a  Military  Life,  during  the 
most  Eventful  Period  of  the  late  War,  by  James  Anton,  Quarter¬ 
master-Sergeant,  42nd  Highlanders  [1813-14].  Edinburgh, 

1841. 

- .  Malcolm,  J.  Reminiscences  of  the  Campaign  in  the 

Pyrenees  and  the  South  of  France  in  1813-14,  by  John  Malcolm, 
Lieut.  42nd  Foot :  in  Constable’s  Memorials  of  the  Late  Wars. 
Edinburgh,  1828. 

- .  Anon.  Personal  Narrative  of  a  Private  Soldier  who 

served  in  the  42nd  Highlanders  for  Twelve  Years  [1808-9  and 
1811-14],  1821. 

43rd  Foot.  Cooke,  J.  H.  Memoir  of  the  late  War,  a  Personal 
Narrative  of  Captain  J.  H.  Cooke,  43rd  Light  Infantry  [Cam¬ 
paigns  of  1811-14].  London,  1831. 

- .  - .  A  Narrative  of  Events  In  the  South  of  France  and 

America,  1814-15  [continuation  of  the  above],  London,  1835. 

- .  Napier,  Geo.  The  Early  Military  Life  of  Gen.  Sir  Geo. 

Napier,  K.C.B.,  written  by  himself.  London,  1886. 

- .  Anon.  Memoirs  of  a  Sergeant  late  of  the  43rd  Light 

Infantry,  previously  to  and  during  the  Peninsular  War,  including 
the  account  of  his  Conversion  from  Popery  to  the  Protestant 
Religion.  London,  1835. 

47th  Foot.  Harley,  J.  The  Veteran,  or  Forty  Years  in  the  British 
Service,  by  Capt.  John  Harley,  late  Paymaster  47th  Regt. 
[Campaigns  of  1811-14].  London,  1838. 

48th  Foot.  Moyle  Sherer,  G.  Recollections  of  the  Peninsula,  by 
Col.  G.  Moyle  Sherer  [Campaigns  of  1809-13].  London. 
1823. 

50th  Foot.  MacCarthy,  J.  The  Storm  of  Badajoz,  with  a  Note  on 
the  Battle  of  Corunna,  by  J.  MacCarthy,  late  50th  Regt. 
London, 1836. 

- .  Napier,  Chas.  Life  and  Opinions  of  Sir  Charles  James 

Napier,  by  Sir  William  Napier  [First  vol.  for  the  50th  at 
Corunna,  etc.].  London,  1857. 


380  Regimental  Bibliography 

50th  Foot.  Patterson,  J.  Adventures  of  Captain  John  Patterson, 
with  Notices  of  the  Officers  of  the  50th  Queen’s  Regiment, 
1807-21.  London,  1837. 

- .  Patterson,  J.  Camp  and  Quarters,  Scenes  and  Impressions 

of  Military  Life  by  the  same  Author.  London,  1843. 

51st  Foot.  Wheeler,  W.  Journal  from  the  year  1809  to  1816  by 
William  Wheeler,  a  Soldier  of  the  51st  or  King’s  Own  Light 
Infantry.  Corfu,  1824. 

52nd  Foot.  Hay,  W.  Reminiscences  under  Wellington,  1808-15, 
by  Captain  William  Hay,  52nd  Foot  and  16th  Light  Dragoons. 
London,  1901. 

- .  Seaton  (Lord).  Life  and  Letters  of  Sir  John  Colborne 

[Lord  Seaton],  ed.  by  G.  C.  Moore-Smith.  London,  1903. 

66th  Foot.  Henry,  W.  Events  of  a  Military  Life,  being  Recollec¬ 
tions  of  the  Service  in  the  Peninsula,  etc.,  of  Walter  Henry, 
Surgeon,  66th  Regt.  [Campaign  of  1812-14].  London, 
1843. 

68th  Foot.  Green,  J.  Vicissitudes  of  a  Soldier’s  Life,  by  John 
Green,  late  of  the  68th  Durham  Light  Infantry.  Louth, 
1827. 

71st  Foot.  Anon.  Vicissitudes  in  the  Life  of  a  Scottish  Soldier, 
1808  to  1815,  including  some  particulars  of  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo.  London,  1827. 

- .  Anon,  TS.  Journal  of  T.  S.  of  the  71st  Highland  Light 

Infantry,  in  Memorials  of  the  Late  Wars  [ed.  Constable], 
Edinburgh,  1828. 

82nd  Foot.  Wood,  G.  The  Subaltern  Officer,  a  Narrative  by 
Captain  Geo.  Wood  of  the  82nd  Prince  of  Wales’s  Volunteers 
[1808  and  1813-14].  London,  1825. 

85th  Foot.  Gleig,  G.  R.  The  Subaltern  [Campaigns  in  the  Pyrenees 
and  South  of  France,  1813-14],  by  G.  R.  Gleig,  85th  Foot. 
London,  1823. 

87th  Foot.  Gough  [Lord].  See  Letters  1809-14  in  R.  S.  Rait’sii/e 
of  Lord  Gough. 

88th  Foot.  Grattan,  W.  Adventures  with  the  Connaught  Rangers, 
1804-14,  by  Lieut.  Wm.  Grattan.  London,  1847. 

- .  - .  Second  series  of  Reminiscences.  London,  1853. 

92nd  Foot.  Hope,  J.  Military  Memoirs  of  an  Infantry  Officer, 
1809-16  [Lieut.  Jas.  Hope,  92nd  Highlanders].  London, 
1833. 


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381 


92nd  Foot.  Anon.  Letters  from  Portugal,  etc.,  during  the  Cam¬ 
paigns  of  1811-14  by  a  British  Officer  [92nd  Gordon  High¬ 
landers].  London,  1819. 

- .  Robertson,  D.  Journal  of  Sergeant  D.  Robertson,  late 

92nd  Highlanders,  during  the  Campaigns  between  1797  and  1818. 
Perth,  1842. 

94th  Foot.  Donaldson,  J.  Recollection  of  an  Eventful  Life,  chiefly 
passed  in  the  Army,  by  Joseph  Donaldson,  Sergeant  94th 
Scotch  Brigade  [1809-14].  London,  1825. 

95th  [Rifle  Brigade].  Costello,  E.  Memoirs  of  Edward  Costello  of 
the  Rifle  Brigade,  comprising  narratives  of  Wellington’s 
Campaigns  in  the  Peninsula,  etc.  London,  1857. 

- .  Ferny  hough,  R.  Military  Memoirs  of  Four  Brothers,  by  the 

survivor,  Lieut.  R.  Fernyhough,  Rifle  Brigade.  London, 
1829. 

- .  Green,  W.  A  brief  Outline  of  the  Travels  and  Adventures 

of  Wm.  Green,  Bugler,  Rifle  Brigade,  during  a  period  of  ten 
years,  1802-12.  Coventry,  1857. 

- .  Harris.  Recollections  of  Rifleman  Harris,  ed.  by  Capt. 

Curling  [1808-09].  London,  1848. 

- .  Kincaid,  J.  Adventures  in  the  Rifle  Brigade,  in  the 

Peninsula,  France,  and  the  Netherlands,  1810-15,  by  Captain 
Sir  John  Kincaid.  London,  1830. 

- .  - .  Random  Shots  from  a  Rifleman  [Miscellaneous  Anec¬ 
dotes].  London,  1835. 

- .  Leach,  J.  Rough  Sketches  of  the  Life  of  an  Old  Soldier, 

during  a  service  in  the  West  Indies,  the  Peninsula,  etc.  [1808-14]. 
London,  1831. 

- .  - .  Rambles  on  the  Banks  of  Styx  [Peninsular 

Reminiscences],  by  the  same  author.  London,  1847. 

- .  Simmons,  G.  A  British  Rifleman :  Journals  and  Corre¬ 
spondence  of  Major  Geo.  Simmons  (95th)  during  the  Peninsular 
War,  etc.,  ed.  Col.  Willoughby  Verner.  London,  1899. 

- .  Smith,  H.  The  Autobiography  of  General  Sir  Harry  Smith 

[vol.  i.  contains  Peninsular  Memoirs],  ed.  G.  Moore  Smith. 
London,  1901. 

- .  Surtees,  W.  Twenty-five  Years  in  the  Rifle  Brigade,  by 

Wm.  Surtees,  Quartermaster  [1808,  1811-14].  London, 

1833. 


382  Regimental  Bibliography 

III.  ARTILLERY. 

Dickson,  Alex.  The  Dickson  Papers,  Diaries  and  Correspondence 
of  Major-General  Sir  Alexander  Dickson,  G.C.B.  Series  1809-18. 
ed.  by  Major  John  Leslie,  R.A.  2  vols.  Woolwich,  1908-12. 

Frazer,  A.  S.  Letters  of  Sir  Augustus  Simon  Frazer,  K.C.B.,  Com¬ 
manding  Royal  Horse  Artillery  under  Wellington,  written 
during  the  Peninsular  Campaigns.  London,  1859. 

[See  also  numerous  short  Journals  and  Series  of  Letters  hi  the 
Journal  of  the  Royal  Artillery  Institution,  Woolwich,  in  recent 
years,  Swabey,  Ingilby,  Downman,  etc.] 

IV.  ENGINEERS. 

Burgoyne,  J.  F.  Life  and  Correspondence  of  Sir  John  Fox  Burgoyne, 
ed.  Hon.  Geo.  Wrottesley.  London,  1873. 

Boothby,  C.  Under  England’s  Flag,  1804-9,  Memoirs,  Diary,  and 
Correspondence  of  Captain  C.  Boothby,  R.E.  [Corunna  Cam¬ 
paign].  London,  1900. 

- .  A  Prisoner  of  France,  by  the  same  [Oporto  and  Talavera 

Campaigns].  London,  1898. 

Landmann,  G.  T.  Recollections  of  Military  Life,  1806-8  [Vimeiro 
Campaign],  by  Colonel  Geo.  Landmann,  R.E.  London,  1854. 

V.  TRAIN  AND  COMMISSARIAT. 

Dallas,  A.  Autobiography  of  the  Rev.  Alexander  Dallas,  including 
his  service  in  the  Peninsula  [1811-14]  in  the  Commissariat 
Department.  London,  1870. 

Chesterton,  G.  L.  Peace,  War,  and  Adventure,  an  Autobiography 
by  George  Laval  Chesterton  [vol.  i.  contains  service  in  Catalonia 
1812-14].  London,  1853. 

Graham,  W.  Travels  in  Portugal  and  Spain,  1812-14,  by  William 
Graham  of  the  Commissariat  Department.  London,  1820. 

Head,  F.  Memoirs  of  an  Assistant-Commissary-General  (in  the 
Peninsular  War),  by  Gen.  F.  Head.  London,  1840. 

Hennegan,  R.  D.  Seven  Years  in  the  Peninsula  and  the  Netherlands, 
by  Sir  Richard  D.  Hennegan,  of  the  Field  Train  [Campaigns  of 
1808-14].  London,  1846. 

VI.  MEDICAL  DEPARTMENT. 

Henry,  W.  Events  of  a  Military  Life,  Recollections  of  the  Peninsular 
War,  etc.,  by  Surgeon  Walter  Henry,  66th  Regt.  London,  1843. 


Regimental  Bibliography 


383 


McGrigor,  J.  The  Autobiography  and  Services  of  Sir  Jas.  McGrigor, 
Bart.,  late  Director  General  of  the  Medical  Department 
[1812-14].  London,  1861. 

Neale,  A.  Letters  from  Portugal  and  Spam  [Vimeiro  and  Corunna), 
by  Adam  Neale,  M.D.  London,  1809. 

VII.  WORKS  BY  CHAPLAINS. 

Bradford,  W.  Sketches  of  the  Country,  Character,  and  Costume  in 
Portugal  and  Spain,  1808-9,  by  Rev.  Wm.  Bradford,  Chaplain 
of  Brigade.  40  coloured  plates.  London,  1810. 

Ormsby,  J.  W.  Operations  of  the  British  Army  in  Portugal  and 
Spain,  1808-9,  by  Rev.  Jas.  Wilmot  Ormsby,  with  appendices, 
etc.  London,  1809. 

VIII.  OFFICERS  IN  THE  KING’S  GERMAN  LEGION. 

Hartmann,  Sir  Julius,  Ein  Lebenskizzc,  1808-15.  Berlin,  1901. 

Ompteda,  Baron,  C.  Memoir  and  Letters  of  Baron  Christian  Ompteda, 
Colonel  in  the  King’s  German  Legion  [Campaigns  of  1812-14]. 
London,  1894. 

Anon.  Journal  of  an  Officer  of  the  King’s  German  Legion,  1803-16. 
London,  1827. 

IX.  WORKS  BY  OFFICERS  IN  THE  PORTUGUESE  SERVICE. 

Blakiston,  J.  Twelve  Years’  Military  Adventure,  in  three  Quarters 
of  the  Globe  [by  Major  John  Blakiston],  1813-14,  with  the 
Portuguese  Cajadores.  1829. 

Bunbury,  T.  Reminiscences  of  a  Veteran,  Personal  and  Military 
Adventures  in  the  Peninsula,  etc.  [1810-14  with  the  20th 
Portuguese  Line].  1861. 

Madden,  G.,  Services  of,  1809-13,  by  a  Friend.  London,  1815. 

Mayne,R.,and  Lillie,  J.  W.  The  Loyal  Lusitanian  Legion,  1808-10. 
London,  1812. 

Warre,  G.  Letters,  1808-12,  of  Sir  George  Warre  [of  the  Portuguese 
Staff],  ed.  by  Rev.  E.  Warre,  D.D.  London,  1909. 

X.  OFFICERS  IN  THE  SPANISH  SERVICE. 

Whittingham,  Sir  S.  Memoir  [and  Correspondence]  of  Lieut.-Gen. 
Sir  Samuel  Ford  Whittingham.  London,  1868. 


INDEX 


A. 

Abrantes,  importance  of,  as  a 
depot,  311 

Aceursio  das  Neves,  Jose,  Portu¬ 
guese  historian,  21 
Adjutant  -  General,  office  and 
duties  of,  in  Wellington’s 
army,  156-7 

Albuera,  battle  of,  strictures 
on  Napier’s  account  of,  2  ;  use 
of  the  ordre  mixte  by  the 
French  at,  85,  86  ;  Blakeney’s 
account  of,  86  ;  W.  Stewart’s 
blunder  at,  88 ;  Beresford’s 
mistakes  at,  120 ;  losses  at, 
190;  gallant  behaviour  of 
Harvey’s  brigade  at,  234 
Americans,  the  Royal,  or  60th 
Foot,  their  rifle-battalion,  75, 
227-228  ;  its  uniform,  300 
American  War  of  1775-82,  use 
of  light  troops  in,  75 
American  War  of  1812-14,  its 
influence  on  the  Peninsular 
War,  308 

Archives  de  la  Querre,  French 
military  documents  at,  16 
Archives  Nationales,  French  mili¬ 
tary  documents  at,  16 
Arroyo  dos  Molinos,  surprise  of 
the  French  at,  109,  117 
Arteche,  General,  his  History 
of  the  Peninsular  War,  38 
Artificers,  the  Royal  Military, 
281  ;  re-organized  as  Sappers 
and  Miners,  285-6  ;  uniform 
of,  299 

Artillery,  Wellington’s  use  of, 
113;  distribution  of,  in  divi¬ 
sions,  176 ;  weakness  of,  in 


Wellington’s  army,  281  ;  use 
of,  in  sieges,  281-3 ;  uniform 
of,  298 

Auxiliary  troops,  the  German 
and  Portuguese,  with  Welling¬ 
ton’s  army,  220-36 


B. 

Badajoz,  gallant  services  of 
Engineers  at,  47,  48  ;  storm¬ 
ing  of,  57  ;  Picton  at,  135  ; 
sack  of,  213,  290  ;  sieges  of, 
281-3,  284-5,  289 

Baggage,  with  the  British  army, 
268-71 

Baird,  General  Sir  David,  his 
despatches  in  the  Record 
Office,  15 

“  Baker  Rifle,”  the,  302-3 

Barnard,  Colonel  Sir  Andrew', 
commands  Light  Division  after 
Craufurd’s  death,  197-8 

Barquilla,  combat  of,  100 

Bathurst,  Lieut-Col.  James, 
Military  Secretary  to  Wel¬ 
lington,  153 

Battalions,  establishment  of  the 
various,  in  the  British  army, 
178-81  ;  and  see  Appendix  I 

Beamish,  Major  Ludlow,  his 
History  of  the.  King’s  German 
Legion,  34  ;  his  description  of 
combat  of  Garcia  Hernandez, 
101,  221 

Beckwith,  Colonel  John,  his 
dealings  with  the  Waldenses, 
331 

“  Belemites,”  or  “  Belem  Ran  - 
gers,”  the,  204,  328 

2  c 


Index 


388 

Bell,  Sir  George,  his  Rough 
Notes  of  Fifty  Years'  Ser¬ 
vice,  24,  254  ;  his  description 
of  soldiers’  wives,  274-5 
Bell,  Sir  John,  his  notes  on 
Craufurd’s  march  to  Talavera, 
24 

Belmas,  Colonel,  his  Journaux 
des  Siiges  dans  la  Peninsule, 

1807-13.. 21 

Bentinck,  Lord  W.,  his  dis¬ 
patches,  15 

Beresford,  William  Carr,  Lord, 
his  strictures  on  Napier’s 
History,  2  ;  his  General  Orders 
for  the  Portuguese  Army,  13  ; 
account  of,  by  Cole,  36 ; 
Wellington’s  regard  for,  46  ; 
his  character  and  capacity, 
119 ;  reorganizes  the  Portu¬ 
guese  army,  119-20,  231—3  ; 
Wellington’s  confidence  in,  120 
Blakeney,  Captain  Robert,  28th 
Foot,  his  Autobiography,  A 
Boy  in  the  Peninsular  War, 
22,  25,  28,  29,  200 
Blakeney,  Colonel  T.,  7th  Foot, 
his  account  of  Albuera,  86 
Blakiston,  Major  John,  his 
Memoirs,  35 

Blayney,  Lord,  his  MS.  at  the 
Record  Office,  15 
Bock,  General,  his  mismanage¬ 
ment  of  cavalry  at  Venta  del 
Pozo,  108 ;  his  exploit  at 
Garcia  Hernandez,  176,  224 
Boothby,  Captain  Charles,  R.E., 
his  diaries,  7,  34,  331 
Botelho,  Major  Texiera,  his 
history  of  Portuguese  Artil¬ 
lery,  35 

Borthwick,  Major-General,  chief 
of  artillery,  158 

Brigades,  the,  of  Wellington’s 
army,  their  organization,  163- 
7 1  ;  and  see  Appendix  II 
“  Brown  Bess  ”  used  in  Peninsu¬ 
lar  army,  301 

Brunswick  Oels,  regiment,  his¬ 
tory  of,  by  Colonel  Kortfleisch, 
35 ;  used  as  light  infantry, 
76  ;  services  of,  in  the  Penin¬ 
sula,  224,  225,  243 


Bugeaud,  Marshal,  his  account 
of  an  attack  of  column  on  line, 
90-2 

Bunbury,  Colonel  Thomas,  Me¬ 
moirs  of,  35 

Burgos,  Wellington’s  retreat 
from,  58,  59  ;  hardships  of  the 
retreat,  266,  267  ;  siege  of, 
286,  287 

Bussaco,  battle  of,  Wellington’s 
tactics  at,  80,  89  ;  Craufurd’s 
tactics  at,  145  ;  Light  Division 
Cagadores  at,  234 


C. 

Cagadores,  Portuguese  light  bat¬ 
talions  with  British  army,  83, 
230  ;  uniform  of,  301 

Camp-followers,  with  the  Penin¬ 
sular  army,  272-3 

Camp-kettles,  improvements  in, 
263 

Campo-Mayor,  cavalry  charge 
at,  105 

Canning,  George,  his  correspond¬ 
ence  with  Wellington  about 
the  war,  52 

Cannon,  Richard,  his  edition  of 
Regimental  Histories,  32-3 

Gapataz,  the  Portuguese,  312- 
13 

Cashiering,  the  punishment  of, 
how  earned,  238-40 

Castlereagh,  Robert  Stewart, 
Viscount,  his  correspondence 
with  Sir  J.  Moore,  15,  183 ; 
with  Wellington,  50 ;  develops 
system  of  recruiting  from  the 
militia,  209 

Cavalry,  t  he,  Wellington’s  tac¬ 
tics,  94  ;  difficulties  of,  in  the 
Peninsula,  95—7  ;  French  tac¬ 
tics,  97-102  ;  Wellington’s  use 
of,  102-4 ;  his  remarks  on 
British  cavalry,  104,  109  ; 

shortcomings  of  British 
cavalry  leade/s,  106 ;  Wel¬ 
lington’s  “  Instructions  ”  for, 
111,  112;  strength  of,  in 

Wellington’s  army,  191-4  ; 
uniforms  of,  296-8 


Index  387 


Chaplains,  army,  their  short¬ 
comings,  Wellington  asks  for 
adequate  establishment  of, 
325-6 

Chasseurs  Britanniques,  no  His¬ 
tory  of,  35  ;  services  of,  76, 
86-7  ;  formation  and  doings 
of,  225-7 ;  desertion  prevalent 
in,  243 

Cimitiere,  Captain,  command  of 
a  brigade  devolved  on,  after 
Albuera,  196-7 

Ciudad  Rodrigo,  storming  of, 
57  ;  Craufurd  slain  at,  146 ; 
sack  of,  213;  siege  of,  283, 
289 

Cocked  hat,  the,  disused  by 
regimental  officers,  293-4 ; 
worn  by  heavy  dragoons,  296  ; 
by  doctors  and  commissaries, 
299 

“  Conversion,”  some  anecdotes 
concerning,  322-4 

Corporal  punishment,  Welling¬ 
ton  on,  43  ;  details  of,  148, 
237-8,  251-4 

Clerc,  Commandant,  his  account 
of  Soult’s  Pyrenean  campaign, 
38 

Coa,  combat  of  the,  144 

Coiners  in  the  army,  214 

Colborne,  Sir  John,  Lord  Seaton, 
Life  of,  by  Moore  Smith,  37  ; 
his  remarks  on  Wellington’s 
Waterloo  dispatch,  48  ;  com¬ 
mands  brigade  at  Albuera, 
197  ;  his  remarks  on  the 
system  of  recruiting,  212  ;  his 
religious  character,  330 

Cole,  J.  W.,  his  Memoirs  of 
British  Generals,  36 

Cole,  General  Sir  Lowry,  his 
controversy  with  Napier,  2 ; 
his  achievement  at  Albuera, 
150 

Combermore,  Lord.  See  Cotton 

Commissariat  Department,  im¬ 
portance  of,  161  ;  manage¬ 
ment  of,  in  Wellington’s  army, 
307-19 

Commissary-General,  his  duties, 
161,  311-14 

Connaught  Rangers,  feud  of,  with 


Picton,  133 ;  anecdotes  of, 
246-7 

Connolly,  T.,  his  History  of  the 
Royal  Sappers  and  Miners,  34 
Cooper,  J.,  Sergeant  7th  Foot, 
his  Seven  Campaigns  in  Portu¬ 
gal,  31 

Cope,  Sir  W.  H.,  his  History  of 
the  Rifle  Brigade,  33 
Costello,  Edward,  his  Reminis¬ 
cences,  30 

Cotton,  Sir  Stapleton,  Lord 
Combermere,  biography  of, 
36  ;  Wellington’s  opinion  of, 
46  ;  his  capacity  as  leader  of 
cavalry,  103,  104,  106,  110,  176 
Court-martials,  character  of, 
241-8 

Craufurd,  General  Robert,  his 
treatment  by  Wellington,  46  ; 
his  abilities  and  career,  139- 
40  ;  captured  at  Buenos 
Ayres,  141  ;  commands  the 
Light  Division,  142-4,  167  ; 
fights  the  combat  of  the  Coa, 
144  ;  his  relations  with  Wel¬ 
lington,  145  ;  repulses  Ney  at 
Bussaco,  145  ;  his  retreat  at 
Fuentes  de  Onoro,  145  ;  killed 
at  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  146  ;  inci¬ 
dent  at  his  funeral,  149  ;  in¬ 
stitution  of  the  Light  Divi¬ 
sion,  168-9  ;  his  arrangements 
for  marching,  263 
Crime  in  the  army,  237-51 
Currie,  Captain  R.,  his  wife  with 
the  army,  276,  278,  note. 

D. 

Dalbiac,  Mrs.,  her  adventures  at 
Salamanca,  277 

Dallas,  Rev.  Alexander,  his 
diary,  7  ;  description  of  his 
commissariat  work,  317  ;  takes 
orders,  331 

Delafosse,  Lemonnier,  his  Sou¬ 
venirs  Militaires,  31 
Desertion,  punishment  of,  243  ; 
prevalence  of,  in  the  foreign 
corps,  223,  225-6 
Dickson,  Colonel  Sir  Alexander, 
commands  artillery,  158 ;  at 


388 


Index 


the  sieges  of  Badajoz,  281-3  ; 
at  Villa  da  Ponte,  312  ;  his 
papers  edited  by  Major  Leslie, 
22,  34 

D'lllens,  Major  A.,  his  reminis¬ 
cences  of  Soult’s  campaigns, 
32 

Dispatches,  the  Wellington,  9- 
12  ;  Supplementary,  12 
Divisions,  the,  of  Wellington’s 
army,  163-77  ;  sobriquets  of, 
172  ;  and  see  Appendix  II 
Donaldson,  Sergeant  Joseph, 
94th  Foot,  his  Reminiscences, 
30  ;  anecdotes  from,  249-50, 
290,  322 

Douro,  river,  importance  of,  as 
a  line  of  supply,  312 
Dragoons,  uniform  of.  Heavy 
and  Light,  296-7 
Drill-books,  the  French,  63,  69  ; 

the  British,  77 
Duels,  in  the  Army,  201-2 
Dumas,  Colonel,  his  account  of 
Soult’s  campaign  in  the  Pyre¬ 
nees,  38 

Dundas,  Sir  David,  his  views  on 
tactics,  77 

D’Urban,  General  Sir  Benjamin, 
criticizes  Napier,  2  ;  his  mem¬ 
orandum  on  the  Portuguese 
army,  233  ;  at  Salamanca, 
234  ;  his  account  of  Majada- 
honda,  235 


E. 

El  Bodon,  retreat  of  British 
troops  in  square  at,  100  ; 
Grattan’s  description  of  Picton 
at,  134 

Elphinstone,  Lieut.-Colonel,  com¬ 
mands  Royal  Engineers,  158 
Engineers,  rank  and  file  of, 
called  “  Royal  Military  Arti¬ 
ficers,”  and  later  “  Royal  Sap¬ 
pers  and  Miners,”  281,  286  ; 
weakness  of  Wellington’s 
army  in,  281  ;  Wellington’s 
criticism  of,  284-5 
Erskine,  General  Sir  William, 
Wellington’s  mention  of  him 


in  dispatches,  47  ;  his  blun¬ 
ders  at  Casal  Novo  and  Sabu- 
gal,  151 

Executions,  by  shooting,  243  ; 
by  hanging,  244 


F. 

Fantin  des  Odoards,  General  L., 
his  Memoirs,  31 

Fisher,  Colonel  G.  B.,  chief  of 
artillery,  158 

Flanders,  British  campaigns  of 
1793-4  in,  4,  66,  74,  80 

“  Flankers,”  use  of,  in  the 
British  army,  74-5 

Fletcher,  Colonel  Richard,  re¬ 
marks  on  Wellington’s  omis¬ 
sion  to  mention  Engineers  at 
Badajoz,  48  ;  Wellington’s 
instructions  to,  for  Lines  of 
Torres  Vedras,  53  ;  command¬ 
ing  officer  of  Royal  Engineers, 
158 

Forage,  difficulty  of  providing, 
112,  269 

Fortescue,  Hon.  J.,  his  History 
of  the  British  Army,  38,  208 

Foy,  General  M.,  his  Ouerre  de 
la  Peninsule,  19  ;  his  Life,  19  ; 
his  estimate  of  English  in¬ 
fantry,  20  ;  remarks  on  Wel¬ 
lington’s  strategy  at  Sala¬ 
manca,  58  ;  records  Na¬ 
poleon’s  views  on  infantry 
tactics,  72 ;  his  account  of 
cavalry  charge  at  Garcia  Her¬ 
nandez,  101  ;  his  testimony  to 
British  officers,  204  ;  his  de¬ 
scription  of  the  impedimenta 
with  the  British  army  on  the 
march,  268  ;  note  of,  on  the 
British  dragoon  uniform,  297 

Foz  d’Arouce,  Ney  surprised  at, 
109 

Framingham,  Colonel  H.,  chief 
of  artillery,  158 

Frederic  the  Great,  infantry 
tactics  of,  62  ;  followed  by 
French,  63-5,  69-70 ;  his 

cavalry  tactics,  97-8 
I  French  Revolutionary  War,  its 


Index 


389 


importance  in  English  history, 
4,  5,  320-1  ;  tactics  of  the, 
63-8 

Fuente  Guinaldo,  Wellington’s 
tactics  at,  55,  81 
Fuentes  de  Oiioro,  Wellington’s 
omission  to  mention  artillery 
service  at,  47  ;  retreat  of  the 
Light  Division  at,  100  ;  cavalry 
at,  103  ;  Chasseurs  Britan- 
niques  at,  227 
Fusil,  the,  302 


G. 

Garcia  Hernandez,  combat  of, 
101,  103,  224 

Gardyne,  Colonel,  his  Life  of  a 
Regiment,  33 

“  General  Orders,”  Wellington’s 
collection  of,  its  value,  13  ; 
Beresford’s  for  the  Portuguese 
Army,  13 

“  Gentlemen  Rankers,”  notes 
on,  214-15 

German  Legion,  the  King’s, 
History  of,  by  Major  Beamish, 
34  ;  by  Captain  Schwertfeger, 
34  ;  Light  Battalions  of,  76  ; 
dragoons  of,  at  Garcia  Her¬ 
nandez,  101 ;  outpost  work  of 
its  hussars.  111  ;  good  man¬ 
agement  of  their  horses,  112  ; 
under  Craufurd,  143  ;  raised 
in  1804.. 221;  in  the  Penin¬ 
sula,  222-4,  242  ;  uniform  of, 
298,  300 

Gleig,  Rev.  G.  R.,  his  Diary,  7  ; 
The  Subaltern,  25,  27,  331 

Gomm,  Sir  William,  his  Life,  6  ; 
journals,  17 

Gonneville,  Colonel  A.  O.,  his 
Memories  of  the  W  ar  in 
Spain,  32 

Gordon,  Colonel  James,  Quarter¬ 
master  General,  156 

Gough,  Hugh,  Lord,  Life  of,  by 
R.  S.  Rait,  37 

Graham,  Sir  Thomas,  Lord 
Lynedoch,  his  diary,  5-6 ; 
Life  of,  by  Captain  Delavoye, 
35 ;  Wellington’s  confidence 


in,  46  ;  his  career,  122  ;  com¬ 
mands  British  troops  at  Cadiz, 

123  ;  his  victory  at  Barrosa, 

124  ;  his  failure  at  Bergen-op- 
Zoom,  126  ;  his  character  and 
popularity,  127 

Grattan,  W.,  his  With  the 
Connaught  Rangers,  27  ; 
complains  of  Wellington’s  for¬ 
getfulness  of  Peninsular  ser¬ 
vices,  49  ;  his  description  of 
Picton,  132,  133  ;  of  the 
storm  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo, 
290  ;  his  description  of  the 
uniforms  of  the  army,  293 

Guards  battalions  in  Wellington’s 
army,  179,  180,  181,  194 

Guides,  Corps  of,  in  Wellington’s 
army,  158,  159 

Guingret,  Captain,  his  reminis¬ 
cences  of  Massdna’s  campaign 
in  Portugal,  32 

Guidons,  disuse  of,  by  the 
cavalry,  305 

Gurwood,  Colonel  J.,  his  edition 
of  Wellington’s  Dispatches,  9- 
12,  19 

Guibert, General,  tactical  theories 
of,  63,  64,  70 


H. 

Hair-powder,  disused  on  active 
service,  293  ;  Wellington’s 
dislike  for,  294 

Halberd,  the,  proper  weapon  of 
sergeants,  303 

Hamilton,  Colonel  H.  B.,  his 
History  of  the  14f/i  Light 
Dragoons,  33 

Hardinge,  Sir  Henry,  his  con¬ 
troversy  with  Napier,  2 

Harris,  Rifleman,  of  the  95tli,  3, 
31  ;  his  views  on  Craufurd, 
147,  148 

Hawker,  Colonel  Peter,  his 
Journal  of  the  Talavera  Cam¬ 
paign,  17 

Henegan,  Sir  R.  D.,  his 
Seven  Years  of  Campaign¬ 
ing,  25  ;  describes  the  march 
of  a  convoy,  315 


390 


Index 


Hill,  Rowland,  Lord,  his  Lifo  by 
Sidney,  30  ;  Wellington’s  re¬ 
gard  for,  46  ;  his  success  at 
Arroyo  dos  Molinos,  109,  117  ; 
character  of,  115—116  ;  his 
capacity  as  a  leader,  116-117  ; 
Wellington’s  confidence  in, 
117  ;  his  brilliant  achieve¬ 
ment  at  St.  Pierre,  118  ;  com¬ 
mander-in-chief,  118  ;  com¬ 
mands  the  2nd  Division,  166  ; 
religious  character  of,  330 
Horse  Artillery,  in  the  Penin¬ 
sular  Army,  177  ;  uniform  of, 
299 

Horses,  difficulty  of  feeding,  in 
the  Peninsula,  112-13  ;  pri¬ 
vate  horses  of  officers,  269—71 
Howarth,  Brigadier-General  E., 
chief  of  artillery  in  Welling¬ 
ton’s  army,  157 
Hussars,  uniform  of,  298 


I. 

Infantry  tactics,  the,  of  Welling¬ 
ton,  61-93  ;  French  system  of, 
63 ;  in  Wellington’s  army, 
178-91 


J. 

Jones,  Sir  John,  his  Journal  of 
the  Sieges  in  Spain,  in  1811— 
12.. 21  ;  remarks  on  Welling¬ 
ton’s  omission  to  record  ser¬ 
vices  of  Engineers  at  Badajoz, 
47  ;  his  note  on  the  siege  of 
St.  Sebastian,  288 
Jourdan,  Jean-Baptiste,  Marshal, 
his  Guerre  d'Espagne,  20 


K. 

Ker-Porter,  Sir  Robert,  his 
Journal,  1808-9. .  17 
Kincaid,  Sir  John,  6  note  ;  his 
Adventures  in  the  Rifle 
Brigade,  28 ;  his  account  of 
Ciudad  Rodrigo,  130 


King’s  German  Legion.  See 
German  Legion 


L. 

Ladies  at  the  front,  276-8 
La  Pena,  General,  his  in  activity 
at  Barrosa,  124 

Lapene,  Major,  his  histories  of 
Soult’s  campaigns,  20 
Larpent,  Francis,  his  Private 
Journal,  17,  159 
Latour-Maubourg,  General,  de¬ 
feat  of,  by  Lumley  at  Usaere, 
107-8 

Lawrence,  W.,  40th  Foot,  his 
flogging,  253  ;  anecdote  of  his 
experiences  at  Waterloo,  306 
Leach,  Col.  J.,  his  Rough 
Sketches  of  the  Life  of  an  Old 
Soldier,  24 

Leith,  Gen.  Sir  James,  his  dis¬ 
patches  at  the  Record  Office, 
15 ;  memoirs  of,  37  ;  com¬ 
mands  5th  Division,  169 
Lejeune,  General,  his  picture  of 
An  English  Officer’s  family  on 
the  march,  278 

Le  Marchant,  General  Sir  John 
Gaspard,  his  cavalry  charge  at 
Salamanca,  103,  104,  176 ; 
head  of  the  Military  College, 
204  ;  his  religious  convictions, 
330 

Lemonnier,  Delafosse,  his  Sou¬ 
venirs  Militaires,  31 
Leslie,  Major  John,  his  edition 
of  the  Dickson  Papers,  34 
Leslie,  Colonel  T.,  of  Balquhain, 
his  Military  Journal,  24 
Light  companies,  use  of,  74 
Light  Division,  institution  of, 
83,  168  ;  achievements  of 

under  Craufurd,  142-9 ;  at 
Bussaco,  145 ;  at  Fuentes 
de  Onoro,  145 ;  commanded 
by  Alten,  146 
Line  v.  Column,  61-92 
Ligny,  Prussian  tactics  at,  Wel¬ 
lington’s  views  on,  80-1 
Londonderry,  Chas.  Stewart, 
Lord,  his  History  of  the 


Index 


391 


Peninsular  War,  12,  18  ; 

Adjutant-General  in  Welling¬ 
ton’s  Army,  156-7 
Long,  General,  R.  B.,  his  de¬ 
sponding  views,  41  ;  weak 
operations  of,  106 
Lumley,  General  W.,  at  Usagro, 
103  ;  at  Albuera,  107  ;  praise 
of,  by  Picard,  107 
Lusitanian  Legion,  the  Loyal, 
formed  by  Sir  R.  Wilson, 
84,  229 

Luz,  Soriano  da,  his  History 
of  the  Peninsular  War,  38 
Lynedoch,  Lord.  See  Graham, 
Sir  Thomas 


M. 

Mackinnon,  General  H.,  his 
Journal,  17 

Maguilla,  cavalry  combat  of,  105 
Maguire,  Lieutenant,  leads  the 
“  forlorn  hope  ”  at  San  Sebas¬ 
tian,  293 

Maida,  battle  of,  the  use  of  skir¬ 
mishers  at,  74 ;  tactics  at, 
77,  78 

Marbot,  General  M.,  uses  Na¬ 
pier’s  History,  23  ;  his  mis¬ 
takes  and  exaggerations,  26 
March,  the  army  on  the,  account 
of,  255-65  ;  Foy’s  description 
of  the  British,  268 
Marmont,  Auguste,  Marshal,  his 
autobiography,  20 ;  his  mis¬ 
representations,  26 ;  com¬ 
mands  Army  of  Portugal,  56 
Massdna,  Andre,  Marshal,  his 
invasion  of  Portugal  in  1809. . 
53  ;  foiled  by  Lines  of  Torres 
Vedras,  53 

Masterson,  Sergeant,  captures 
an  eagle  at  Barrosa,  206 
McGrigor,  Sir  James,  his  anec¬ 
dotes  of  Wellington,  44,  45  ; 
his  account  of  the  Medical 
Department  in  the  Peninsular 
army,  160 

Medals,  institution  of,  for  good 
service  in  the  regiments,  251 
Medical  Department,  the,  160 


Menil-Durand,  General,  his  sys¬ 
tem  of  infantry  tactics,  63 
Methodists,  the,  influence  of,  in 
the  army,  320-31 
Military  Secretary,  office  of  the, 
at  Headquarters,  152-3 
Militia,  recruiting  from,  in  Wel¬ 
lington’s  Army,  209-11 
Minorca  Regiment,  Stuart’s,  later 
97th,  227-8 

Money,  current,  difficulty  of 
providing,  in  the  Peninsula, 
161,  214,  270,  317 
Moore,  General  Sir  John,  bio¬ 
graphy  of,  by  Sir  F.  Maurice, 
37  ;  his  views  on  the  defence 
of  Portugal,  51  ;  his  army,  183 
Moorsom,  Captain  W.  S.,  his 
History  of  the  52nd,  Oxford¬ 
shire  Light  Infantry,  33 
Mules,  use  of,  for  baggage  and 
transport,  269-71,  308-9 
Muleteers,  organization  of,  for 
the  army,  312,  313 
Murray,  Colonel  George,  Quarter¬ 
master-General  to  Welling¬ 
ton’s  army,  155-6 
Murray,  John,  Commissary- 
General,  156,  161 
Murray,  Major-General  John, 
15,  47,  155 


N. 

Napier,  Sir  William,  criticism 
of  his  Peninsular  War  by 
Beresford,  Cole,  Hardinge, 
D’Urban,  etc.,  2  ;  his  History, 
18  ;  its  influence  on  other 
publications,  23,  24,  29,  32  ; 
his  controversy  with  Picton’s 
biographer,  36  ;  complains  of 
want  of  recompense  of  Penin¬ 
sular  veterans,  49 ;  over¬ 
states  Craufurd’s  march  to 
Talavera,  141,  167  ;  his  severe 
judgment  of  Craufurd,  147  ; 
his  failure  to  appreciate  the 
work  of  the  Portuguese  army, 
234 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  Emperor, 
his  tactics  at  Marengo,  69  ; 


392 


Index 


his  infantry  tactics,  70  ;  his 
use  of  cavalry,  97  ;  at  Water¬ 
loo,  102  ;  his  use  of  artillery, 

113,  177 

Naval  predominance  of  Great 
Britain,  its  importance,  310-11 
Newman,  Sergeant,  of  43rd,  his 
exploit,  206 

Nive,  battle  of,  Wellington’s 
tactics  at,  59 


O. 

Officers,  establishment  of,  in 
Wellington’s  army,  195  ;  pro¬ 
motion  among,  198-201 ;  train¬ 
ing  of,  203 ;  discipline  of, 
237-42 

Oporto,  campaign  of,  Welling¬ 
ton’s,  163,  164 

Ordenanga,  the  Portuguese,  235- 
6 

Orders,  General,  publication  of, 
13 ;  the  Portuguese,  13  ; 
account  of  the  marching  of  the 
army  in,  255-65 

Ordre  mixte,  the,  Napoleon’s 
preference  for,  70-72 

Organization,  the,  of  Welling¬ 
ton’s  army,  153-77,  and  Ap¬ 
pendix  II 

Ormsby,  Rev.  J.  W.,  his  Jour¬ 
nal  of  the  Campaigns  of  1809. . 
9,  17,  325 

Owen,  Rev.  T.,  army  chaplain, 
his  gallant  behaviour  in  action, 
327 

Ox-waggons,  use  of,  its  draw¬ 
backs,  314-15 


P. 

Pack,  Sir  Denis,  Life  of,  37 
Paget,  Lord,  his  ability  as  a 
cavalry  leader,  106 
Pakenham,  Major-General  Ed¬ 
ward,  commands  expedition 
to  New  Orleans,  151  ;  Ad¬ 
jutant-General  in  Welling¬ 
ton’s  army,  167  ;  commands 
3rd  Division  at  Salamanca,  198 


Parquin,  Captain  D.,  his  me¬ 
moirs,  32 

Paymaster-General,  office  of,  161 
Peninsular  War,  history  of,  by 
Napier,  2,  18,  23,  24,  29,  32, 
36 ;  by  Southey,  18 ;  by 
Toreno,  21  ;  by  Accursio  das 
Neves,  21  ;  by  Arteche,  38  ; 
by  Soriano  da  Luz,  38  ;  by 
Balagny,  38 

Prisoners,  the  French,  14 ;  re¬ 
cruiting  of  foreign  corps  from, 
225-6 

Picton,  General  Sir  Thomas, 
Life  of,  by  H.  B.  Robinson, 
36 ;  his  personal  relations 
with  Wellington,  44,  46,  137, 
138  ;  character  and  career  of, 
129-38  ;  Governor  of  Trini¬ 
dad,  130  ;  description  of,  by 
Grattan,  132,  133  ;  at  El 
Bodon,  134 ;  his  successful 
storm  of  the  castle  at  Badajoz, 
135,  284  ;  wounded  at  Qua- 
tre  Bras,  135 ;  killed  at 
Waterloo,  136;  estimate  of 
his  character  and  abilities, 
136-8 

Popham,  Sir  Home,  his  MS.  at 
the  Record  Office,  15 
Portugal,  defence  of,  Welling¬ 
ton’s  scheme  for,  50 
Portuguese  Army,  account  of, 
35 ;  artillery  of,  by  Major 
Botelho,  35 ;  troops  incor¬ 
porated  in  British  Army, 
83,  168  ;  organization  of,  by 
Beresford,  119-122,  231-3  ; 
its  composition,  229-33 
Press,  the  Travelling,  of  Wel¬ 
lington’s  army,  162 
Promotion,  system  of,  in  British 
army,  198 ;  from  the  ranks 
206-7 

“  Provisional  Battalions,”  his¬ 
tory  of  the,  187-8 
Purveyor’s  Department,  the 
160 

Q. 

Quartermaster  -  General,  office 
of,  in  Wellington’s  army. 


Index 


393 


155-6 ;  duties  of  his  sub¬ 
ordinates,  258-9 
Quill,  Doctor  Maurice,  surgeon 
of  the  Connaught  Rangers, 
anecdotes  of,  299 


R. 

Rae,  John,  71st  Foot,  his  exploit 
at  Sobral,  324 

Raglan,  Lord.  See  Somerset, 
Lord  Fitzroy 

Record  Office,  Peninsular  docu¬ 
ments  in,  14 

Recruiting,  notes  on,  208-213 
Regiments,  internal  organization 
of,  208-219 

Regimental  Histories,  series, 
compiled  by  R.  Cannon,  32  ; 
later  histories,  33-4 
Reille,  General,  his  mistake  at 
Quatre  Bras,  81 

Religion,  influence  of,  in  Penin¬ 
sular  army,  6-7,  320-1 
Reprimands,  punishment  by, 
240-2 

Revolution,  the  French,  British 
detestation  of,  5,  320-1 
Reynier,  General  J.  L.,  at 
Maida,  77,  78  ;  at  Bussaco,  85 
Rifle  battalions,  formed  in  the 
British  army,  75  ;  use  of,  by 
Wellington,  83,  84  ;  uniform 
of,  300-1 

Rifle,  the  Baker  type,  its  cha¬ 
racter,  302-3 

Rifle  Brigade,  the  95th  Foot,  75, 
305 

Rifleman  Harris,  3,  23,  31  ;  his 
account  of  Craufurd,  147-8 
Roberts,  Lord,  his  estimate  of 
Wellington’s  character,  49 
Rocca,  Captain  M.,  his  account 
of  the  war  in  Spain,  32 
Rodrigo,  Ciudad.  See  under 
Ciudad  Rodrigo 

Ross,  General  W.,  commands 
expedition  to  America,  151 
Royal  Military  College,  the, 
203-4 

Russian  War,  its  effect  on  the 
Peninsular  War,  56,  59 


S. 

Sabugal,  combat  of,  86 
Salamanca,  Wellington’s  sudden 
attack  at,  57  ;  his  tactics  at, 
80 ;  use  of  cavalry  at,  97, 
170 

San  Sebastian,  sack  of,  213 ; 
siege  of,  287-8  ;  the  Portu¬ 
guese  infantry  at,  234 
Sappers  and  Miners,  the  Royal, 
286  ;  uniform  of,  299  ;  wea¬ 
pons  of,  304-5 

Saxe,  Marshal,  infantry  tactics 
of,  62,  63,  65 

Scliepeler,  Colonel  K.,  his  History 
of  the  Peninsular  War,  20 
Scouts,  Wellington’s,  53 
Seaton,  Lord.  See  Colborne 
Sergeants,  status  of,  in  tho 
Peninsular  army,  216-19  ; 
their  halberds,  303 
Shako,  introduction  of,  in  the 
British  army,  292-3 
Shaw-Kennedy,  T.,  aide-de- 
camp  to  Craufurd,  his  de¬ 
scription  of  Craufurd,  143 
Sherbrooke,  General  J.  C., 
commands  the  1st  Division, 
166 

Sherer,  Captain  Moyle,  his  Re¬ 
collections  of  the  Peninsula, 
27 

Shipp,  John,  his  autobiography, 
3  ;  his  romantic  career,  206 
Siege  train,  Wellington’s,  organ¬ 
ized  by  Alex.  Dickson,  281-3 
Sieges,  the,  of  the  Peninsular 
War,  279  ;  of  Badajoz,  281— 
6  ;  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  283  ; 
of  Burgos,  286-7  ;  of  San 
Sebastian,  288 

Silveira, General,  commands  Por¬ 
tuguese  Militia,  235 
Simmons,  George,  95th  Foot, 
his  Journal,  17 

Slade,  General  J.,  his  rash  charge 
at  Maguilla,  105 ;  Welling¬ 
ton’s  remarks  on,  106 ;  esti¬ 
mate  of  his  capacity,  151 
Smith,  Sir  Harry,  his  Autobi¬ 
ography,  28  ;  romantic  story 
of  his  marriage,  277 


394 


Index 


Somerset,  Lord  Fitzroy  (after¬ 
wards  Lord  Raglan),  Military 
Secretary  to  Wellington,  153  ; 
aide-de-camp  to  Wellington, 
160 

Sorauren,  battle  of,  Wellington’s 
tactics  at,  54,  81 
Soult,  Nicolas,  Marshal,  at  So¬ 
rauren,  54,  55  ;  at  St.  Pierre, 
118  ;  at  San  Sebastian,  288 
Southey,  Robert,  his  History  of 
the  Peninsular  War,  18 
Spain,  geography  of,  93-7 
Spenoer,  Sir  Brent,  Wellington’s 
confidence  in,  46  ;  his  limita¬ 
tions,  151 

“  Spring  Waggons,”  the,  314 
Spriinglin,  Colonel,  his  auto¬ 
biography,  22,  32 
St.  Chamans,  Colonel,  his  Me¬ 
moirs,  31,  32 

St.  Cyr,  Gouvion,  Marshal,  his 
History  of  the  War,  20 
St.  Pierre,  Hill  at  the  battle  of, 
118  ;  gallant  conduct  of  Ash¬ 
worth’s  Portuguese  at,  234 
Staff  Corps  Cavalry,  duties  of 
the,  150 

Standards,  types  of,  used  in 
Wellington’s  army,  305-6 
Stevenson,  Sergeant,  J.,  his  me¬ 
moirs,  4 ;  his  religious  con¬ 
victions,  324  ;  description  of 
the  Methodist  meetings  at 
Badajoz,  329-30 
Stewart,  Sir  Charles.  See 
Londonderry 

Store-keeper  General,  office  of, 
162 

Stothert,  Captain  W.,  his  Diary 
of  1809-11. .17 

Suchet,  Marshal  Louis  Gabriel, 
his  account  of  the  war  in 
Catalonia,  20 

Surtees,  Sergeant  W.,  his  reli¬ 
gious  experiences,  7  ;  his  re¬ 
miniscences,  30,  215  ;  his  re¬ 
marks  on  army  chaplains, 
328 

“  Suspension,”  punishment  of, 
240-1 

Swords,  types  of,  used  by 
Peninsular  army,  303-4 


T. 

T.  S.  of  the  71st  Foot,  his  auto¬ 
biography,  30  ;  why  he  joined 
the  army,  211-12 
Tactics,  infantry,  French,  63- 
73  ;  British,  74-91 
Talavera,  battle  of,  Wellington’s 
tactics  at,  80,  82  ;  charge  of 
23rd  Light  Dragoons  at,  105 
Tarleton,  Colonel  B.,  his  History 
of  the  War  in  Carolina,  3  ;  his 
“  Legion  ”  of  light  troops, 
75 

Tents,  advantages  and  disad¬ 
vantages  of,  259-60,  264-5 
Thiebault,  General  Dieudonn6, 
his  account  of  the  war  in 
Portugal,  20  ;  of  the  combat 
of  Aldea  da  Ponte,  26 
Tirailleurs,  employed  in  French 
army,  65-7,  69 

Tomkinson,  Colonel  W.,  his 
Diary,  17,  106  ;  his  Notes  on 
British  Cavalry  Regiments, 
110,  193 

Torres  Vedras,  Lines  of,  Welling¬ 
ton  orders  their  construction 
in  1809.. 52-3 

Toreno,  Conde  de,  his  History 
of  the  Peninsular  War,  21 
Trant,  Colonel  N.,  leads  Portu¬ 
guese  militia,  235 
Trousers,  introduced  in  the 
British  army,  294-6 


U. 

Uniforms,  the,  in  the  Peninsular 
army,  292 

Usagre,  cavalry  combat  of,  105 


V. 

Vaughan,  Sir  Charles,  his  dis¬ 
patches,  15  ;  his  MSS.,  16 
Venta  del  Pozo,  cavalry  combat 
of,  103,  108 

Victor,  Claude  Perrin,  Marshal, 
defeated  at  Barrosa,  124 
Vigo-Roussillon,  Colonel,  his 


Index 


395 


account  of  Barrosa,  32  ;  his 
appreciation  of  Graham,  127 

Yimeiro,  battle  of,  Wellington’s 
tactics  at,  80 

Vivian,  Hussey,  Lord,  6 ;  Life 
of,  37 

“  Volunteers,”  their  status,  196 


W. 

Walcheren,  expedition,  the,  dis¬ 
astrous  effects  of  on  health  of 
regiments,  187 

Wallace,  Colonel  W.,  commands 
3rd  Division  after  fall  of 
Badajoz,  198 

Warre,  Sir  George,  his  Letters  of 
1808-12. . 17 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  Wellington’s 
tactics  at,  80,  87 

Wellesley,  Henry,  diplomatist, 
his  dispatches  at  the  Record 
Office,  15,  106 

Wellington,  Arthur  Wellesley, 
Duke  of,  his  dispatch  con¬ 
cerning  preaching  officers,  7  ; 
Gurwood’s  edition  of  his  Dis¬ 
patches,  9-12  ;  the  Supple¬ 
mentary  Dispatches,  12  ;  his 
General  Orders,  13  ;  views  on 
publication  of  historical  in¬ 
formation,  9  ;  his  story  of  a 
visit  to  Bliicher  before  Water¬ 
loo,  25  ;  his  early  career,  39- 
41  ;  his  relations  with  his 
troops,  41-3  ;  with  his  officers, 
43  ;  autocratic  temper,  46  ; 
his  dispatches,  47 ;  Lord 
Roberts’  estimate  of  him, 
49  ;  extraordinary  prescience 
of  the  course  of  the  war,  50-3  ; 
his  long-sighted  calculation, 
53-5 ;  his  strategy,  55 ;  in 
offensive  warfare,  57-80  ;  his 
infantry  tactics,  61,  73-93  ; 
his  views  on  French  tactics, 
78 ;  his  tactics  at  Vimeiro, 


Bussaco,  Salamanca,  Water¬ 
loo,  80 ;  remarks  on  the 
triumph  of  line  over  column, 
86 ;  his  cavalry  tactics,  94- 
102,  104  ;  remarks  on  British 
cavalry,  104-109  ;  “  Instruc¬ 
tions  for  Cavalry,”  111,  112; 
his  confidence  in  Hill,  117  ; 
in  Beresford,  120  ;  in  Graham, 
125  ;  his  relations  with  Crau- 
furd,  144 ;  his  estimate  of 
Erskine,  151  ;  his  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  army,  154 ;  his 
rapid  early  promotion,  199 ; 
remarks  on  promotion  from 
the  ranks,  206-7  ;  adventure 
with  the  plunderer  of  bee¬ 
hives,  246  ;  his  orders  for  the 
army  on  the  march,  255,  263  ; 
his  remarks  on  the  third  siege 
of  Badajoz,  284  ;  at  the  siege 
of  Burgos,  287  ;  his  attitude 
toward  religion,  324-5  ;  re¬ 
quisitions  chaplains  for  the 
army,  325-7 

Wellington,  Arthur  Richard 
Wellesley,  second  Duke  of,  his 
publication  of  the  Supple¬ 
mentary  Dispatches,  9,  12 
Wesleys,  the,  influence  of,  320 
Whinyates,  Colonel  F.  A.,  his 
history  From  Corunna  to 
Sebastopol,  33 

Windham,  William,  his  appre¬ 
ciation  of  Craufurd,  140 
Wives,  the  soldiers’,  at  the  front, 
274-6 

Woodberry,  Lieutenant  G.,  18th 
Hussars,  his  Diary,  6 


Y. 

York,  Frederick,  Duke  of,  his 
campaign  in  Flanders,  66,  74  ; 
his  views  on  infantry  tactics, 
77  ;  on  promotion  in  the  army, 
199-200 


THE  END 


PRINTED  BY 

WILLIAM  CLOWES  AND  SONS,  LIMITED 
LONDON  AND  BECOLES 


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